WearyTraveler

Could be they changedit between the time of the Hollywood Reporter's interview and the time they started filming. Or a mistake by THR. Or, by the time they did the interview with EW, they decided to say 5 children so people wouldn't wonder about Grace right away. If it's 5 foster children and the Social Worker is there to ensure they are in a good environment, why didn't she ask to see Grace? We saw her interacting with all the other children, I'd think that speaking to the one with such a high social anxiety would be a priority. Or maybe they are saving that for the next episode. It could be nothing more than meets the eye, off course, I just found it weird that no one but Andy interacted with Grace or mentioned her.

Alfonso Herrera has always been listed first in the credits. I think Ben Daniels is a great actor, but I never thought he was the Exorcist. From the very first episode I thought the title belonged to Father Thomas. We are just seeing his journey to get there with Marcus as his teacher. We're just lucky that Daniels is phenomenal in the role. Before watching this episode, I read an interview with the showrunner posted in the media thread about the second season. It's very general in nature with no specific plot spoilers. But, one thing did catch my attention: So, FOUR foster kids (Verity, Truck, Caleb and Shelby). Does that mean little Grace is his own child or someone / something else? I found it strange that no one but Andrew interacted with her, and no one else even mentions her in conversation. Also, as someone else pointed out, everyone left the house to search for Caleb and no one was concerned about leaving a young child home alone in the middle of the night. Something smells fishy with this one. Maybe Andrew lost his wife and his daughter and the little girl is something else (ghost, demon induced hallucination, integrated demon...). I'll have to re-watch the scene where the social worker is looking at the pictures on the wall, to see if there's one of Grace. That's also where we see the hand prints that Thomas sees in his visions. I found that detail to be very well done. Someone asked abut the relationship between Andrew and the social worker, they had an awkward conversation where he says he hopes their past relationship doesn't influence her report, she is offended and sarcastically asks if he thinks that she's still all broken-hearted. Then she says she can separate the personal and the professional and that if the kids are being properly looked after, he has no reason to worry. I took this to mean that they had dated and he broke it off. As for the future, I found Marcus' words to Thomas very interesting. In last season's finale, Marcus told the priest trying to make a deal with him (integrate with the demon by allowing these ashes to enter you, or die) that in one of his exorcisms he saw God. He uses the story about blind men in a room with an elephant, all describing the part they are touching, so no one can figure out what the whole picture is. He says he saw the whole picture, he saw God, so, he's not dying for the Church, he's dying for God. In this episode Thomas tells Marcus that he also saw God, and Marcus says: "that's how they get you". When we first met Marcus he was in some sort of Catholic Church refuge and he wasn't performing exorcisms any more. I think what happened was that Marcus became sort of addicted to seeing God, and kept chasing that high; with every successful exorcism, his pride grew and he thought himself invincible. We may be seeing Thomas walking down the same path, this time. And as we all know: pride goes before the fall.

That's the exact reason she gives Dany in the chapter. She says that there is no guarantee that another slaver ship wouldn't go there and take them again. You'd think that since it seems to be such a recurring situation, the people in Naath would have found a way to defend themselves, somehow. ______________________ I'm like a week behind, so, I'll make it short, but I wanted to mention two things on previous chapters: 1) Snarky Jon with his "my Lord" and "Ser" after every sentence was fun. Especially when he told Janos he didn't know what Slynt's brain was made off, "my Lord". 2) Is the Tyrion chapter one of the longest chapters in the all the series? I felt that it went on forever. Even though it was riveting, it went on for so long that, eventually, I was as annoyed as The Mountain with "You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children" and was ready for a resolution of that combat. I think Tyrion chapters start running very long in the last two books and I don't know if it is because Tyrion is clearly Martin's favourite (and his very own Mary Sue), or if it's because Tyrion is the only POV character, aside from Dany and Quentyn (later), in Essos, and so we have to cover a lot of story through him.

I see what you mean now. Yes, Jaquen told her that. I think this is later clarified when Arya finally reaches the House of Black and White and we learn that the God of Many Faces always demands a big sacrifice of the people who come to the Temple to ask for their services.

I wasn't asking about Coldhand's heart, I know his heart isn't beating, and I'm quite familiar with his speech. He says it to Bran when they are in an abandoned wildling village, after Bran tells him he knows Coldhands has just killed brothers of the NW (because he saw their bodies as Summer and fought with Varamyr in the skin of his one-eyed wolf for the right to feed from the corpses). What I said was that I didn't recall anyone in the books saying that Beric's heart wasn't beating. And they don't. Martin says it later in an interview, but the work should stand for itself. If he wanted readers to know that Beric's heart isn't beating, then, someone should have said it, regarding Beric, in the books. Also, he shouldn't have given the man scars from the wounds that killed him, because scars means living tissue, and living tissue means a beating heart. Before assuming that Martin doesn't know this, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and an attempt at cunning. Perhaps Martin meant that Beric's heart isn't beating now, after six resurrections, but it might have been beating before. In any case, there is, in the canon, a marked difference between ice resurrections, as performed by the Others, and fire resurrections, as performed by the priests and priestesses of R'hllor. And since the canon doesn't go into all the differences and the implications, we simply can't say, for sure, how it works and how it all turns out for Jon. Well, let's not call each other names, shall we? I'm sorry you felt I was being pedantic. That wasn't my intention. You brought up Drogo, so, I pointed out he was brought back as a vegetable, and MMD did say the words "only death can pay for life". Then she proceeded to kill Daenerys' baby, so that Drogo could "live". Dany then took three lives (MMD, Drogo and Drogo's horse) to pay for the lives of her three Dragons. My point in bringing this up is that it appears, from the canon, that blood magic is yet a third way to bring people back from the dead. We know that Dorne was promised Gregor's head, and we know that Tywin wanted it to be a public execution so there could be no doubt that it was the Lannisters "paying their debts". We also know that further delays in sending said head would look suspicious, so a skull was sent, but there was no public execution, and no scene in the book where either Qyburn or Cersei admits that this is, in fact, Gregor's head. If I recall correctly, once Doran receives it, he even expresses some doubts about it being Gregor's head. So, it could have been his head, or it could have been a decoy to appease Dorne. The conversation in the books goes as follows: It could be they sent Gregor's head, or maybe not. I don't think the text gives us a definitive answer. But, in any case, my point wasn't about his head. In fact, my point is even stronger if Gregor did die, as my specific argument was that Qyburn is neither a White Walker, nor a priest of R'hllor, so whatever Gregor is now, he's not a fire wight or an ice wight. It is heavily implied that Qyburn was using blood magic rituals that he learned in the Citadel to reanimate Gregor. So, once again, there's a third way to resurrect people in the books. We saw what Mel did on the show, and her ritual was different from Thoros'. In the books she's also fond of using King's Blood for her work, something that Thoros doesn't use. So, it stands to reason that Mel's process to resurrect Jon in the books could be different than what we have seen so far from other re-animators (White Walkers, Red Priests, practioners of blood magic). First of all, canon is only the books. If Martin wants his readers to know something, it should be written in the books as not all readers will bother to read his interviews. The books clearly state that Coldhands and all the other ice wights are corpses, but it leaves wiggle room when it comes to people resurrected by Red Priests. Second of all, I never said Beric, at the end of his days, is not a corpse. I only pointed out facts from the books that indicate he might not have been a corpse right after his first resurrection (scar tissue being present, no blood congealing in his extremities, the fact that his memories didn't disappear completely after his first resurrection but did so progressively after each resurrection). And I never said they weren't set up. I pointed out that LSH and Beric come out of the process differently. By the time Beric is a husk of his former self it has been six resurrections, his body healed, hers didn't. He lost his memories, she recalls the Red Wedding in detail. These are indications that this resurrection process is not consistent. Ergo, it's hard to tell how Jon will be affected, given that he's a warg (which neither Beric nor LHS are); the Red Priestess that will apparently resurrect him has different rituals than Thoros, which include using blood magic; and they are at The Wall, where Mel herself tells Jon in ADWD that the magic of The Wall is strong, and she is stronger there; to name a few. I'm not contradicting canon, I'm merely pointing out that: Canon is not consistent when it comes to resurrections. The author has clearly given himself plenty of wiggle room to do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection by setting him up as special: he's a warg, and a Targ, and the embodiment of fire+ice, and most likely TPTWP or AA. Dany is also a strong candidate but she has never wielded a sword in the books or on the show, so that reduces the likelihood that she will be the one to fulfill the prophesy. On the show, there have been two stare downs between NK and Jon, both emphasized by the way the scene is shot and the music that goes with it. I think this points to Jon being the one having to kill the NK in order to eliminate the WW threat, so, he will be AA reborn. Martin says many things about having real consequences for characters, but many of his own characters have quite a thick plot armor protecting them and don't suffer the real consequences that they should suffer as people living in this world Martin created. I believe I have already given several examples of this. What Martin says he wants to do as a writer in interviews is not always what Martin does as a writer in his books. For example, Martin has complained that in TLOTR we are told that Aragorn was a good King, but that we actually don't know why Aragorn was a good King because we are never told of his economic and social policies (I think he specifically mentions taxes). With two books left, Martin will probably have to give a similar answer to his own readers. Whatever power structure is set up at the end of this saga, I doubt we'll get an 8th book explaining, in detail, why the form of government established in Westeros after the WW threat is eliminated is good/bad. Yes, she does. But we don't know that this was always the case, as she meets him after a few resurrections have already happened. And I'm saying that there's room in the canon to believe otherwise because the characters say that his deterioration has been (a)progressive and (b)the result of each resurrection. It's the resurrections that seem to be taking a toll on his body and his mind. I'm also saying that your interpretation may be a valid one, but that book canon and author choices in the text leave enough room for other interpretations to be just as valid and plausible. We'll just have to wait for the next two books to see which one it turns out to be, if Martin ever deigns to finish the story he started, that is. With some characters, yes, with Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion and Bran, no. Their show stories have been extremely close to their book stories. For those who are not fans of these characters, it might be a hard pill to swallow, but these are the top five protagonists and whatever happens to them on the show, will probably be very close to what happens to them in the books. I have no doubt that Jon and Dany will eventually end up falling for each other in the books, for example. I think that if it's an important development for one of these five characters, it will certainly be very similar. This is grasping at straws, in my opinion. Off course some things will be different for some characters. I imagine Bronn and Tormund will have very different endings on the show than they do in the books. fAegon isn't even on the show, so, if they learned about his fate in Santa Fe, they will not depict that on the show. As to things that Martin wasn't sure about, it's a safe bet that this relates to second and third tier characters, like little Lyanna Mormont. Martin has always known the fate of his top five and I'm pretty sure that fate will remain the same in both mediums. Precisely. She was only resurrected once and the effect on her body is worse than Beric's who has been resurrected 6 times. So, the process was not consistent.

I think that even if Shireen's death is the price for Jon's life in the books, this will never be addressed on the show. If they didn't do it when they resurrected Jon, they are not going to bring that up again now. I think the only character that could explain that is Mel and last time we saw her she was on her way to Essos, plus, Jon banished her from the North (precisely for burning Shireen).

The Faceless Men don't do life swapping though. They take the faces of the dead, but that doesn't mean they create new life. Mirri is the one that said that only death can pay for life (and then she proceeded to kill Dany's baby, so that Drogo could "live"). I think what makes people think that Shireen's death may be the price for Jon's life are thinking of that line by Mirri and of the fact that Mel also uses a sort of blood magic, always asking for King's blood for her rituals.

Fire wights don't have black hands, which is a very important feature of ice wights. So much so, that after Sam and Gilly climb on the elk with Coldhands, the chapter closes with Sam noticing his hands are black. A common technique to leave the readers in suspense and worried about what might happen to Sam and Gilly now that they are with a wight. Since he does exhibit a big characteristic of the ice wights, I'm going to say that he is one, but something or someone interfered with the process. Drogo was brought back with blood magic. So, he may actually be a third option for resurrection. As far as we know, Mirri used blood in her ritual, not fire or ice, and her God is not R'hllor or The Other one. It's possible that Gregor never died, we really don't know. Qyburn experiments on people and it's implied he uses blood magic as well, which he learned while at the Citadel, but he's no red priest. You don't seem to want to acknowledge the importance of the six times, which is something we should consider, given that the author took pains in reminding us of that every time someone mentions Beric and the Outlaws. The first time we meet Beric after he left KL, he's in a cave, ready to pass judgement on the Hound. He even makes a joke, he's agile, he's almost good enough to beat the Hound. We learn that he still remembers the mission Ned entrusted on him, and it's only later that we learn he has been progressively losing his memories. His heart not beating is not something that is said in the books, that I recall. Perhaps you can provide a quote. What is said in the chapter as Arya is describing the character for us, is that he has the scars of the other wounds that killed him. And scars means living tissue. Once again, Beric says the process made him a specter progressively. Not after the very first time. I'll ask again, if Beric is set up for Jon, why would Jon be a grim specter just after the first time? But, I think the strongest argument for Jon not being radically changed after his resurrection is the show itself. I know that they do some things differently, but, HBO made it a part of the deal that Martin had to tell them his intended ending in order for them to even do the show (basically, they said "spill the beans or we won't shower you with millions of dollars for the right to turn your books into a TV show"). Some of the minor characters' fates will not be the same (e.g. Selmy is dead on the show, alive in the books), off course; even some of the main characters' stories could change (e.g. Sansa's Vale plot was completely thrown out); but, the purpose of knowing the ending is to depict the ending, and D&D have said they'll do Martin's ending. This is probably specially more true for the main 5 (of which Jon is a part) than for any of the others. So, Jon, Tyrion, Bran, Arya and Dany will get the same ending in the show than they do in the books, for sure, while other characters might get something similar to heir book endings but not exactly the same. And yet other characters will probably get completely different endings (Bronn and Tormund as fan favorites come to mind). The fact that show!Jon is not significantly changed since his resurrection is the strongest indicator, so far, that those of us who have speculated a similar fate for Jon based on what we have read so far in the books could be correct. This is not a physical effect, it's an emotional / psychological one. Plus, Beric isn't wrecking vengeance, he's handing out justice, just as Ned asked him to do. It's not vengeance because he's not judging people that wronged him, he's judging those accused of crimes by the realm. Perhaps he suffers from vigilantism, but it's not vengeance on enemies.

I am re-reading ASOS, and I saw that upon my original read I had highlighted the following quote from Jon (he thinks this as he's having a conversation with Tormund while they are walking toward Mance's tent north of the Wall, when Jon is tasked to kill Mance by Janos): I even made a note that YES! something happy needed to happen to someone already because that far into the story it had all been death, war, destruction and the beat down of all the characters / houses that were fighting for just causes. I think this is meant to say to the reader: "I see you, I know this is depressing, but it will all change". It's silly, but I found the line oddly comforting. Not that I think the ending will be unicorns and rainbows, but this line gave me hope that, eventually, things would start to look up for a least a few of the characters. And what do you know? In the fifth book we find out Davos didn't die, that the North remembers, and that Manderly baked Frey pies... :-) This is the sort of thing that keeps me mildly hopeful about the ending not being all bleak.

Words are wind. Or, as we say now: actions speak louder than words. Beric didn't change all that much after his first resurrection. He changed a little after each one, until he became a husk. LSH changed a lot, but her circumstances were different than Beric's. The Others re-animate corpses, wildlings and black brothers seem to go through the process in the exact same way. Very little of their former self remains (a little does, as we see from the wight that was after the Lord Commander in Castle Black). BUT, Coldhands is special. He is clearly an ice wight, but he's different from all the other ice wights. Martin can say a lot of things about the writer he wants to be in interviews, but his own work speaks louder as to the kind of writer he actually is. And he shouldn't be so hard on himself, he's actually a pretty good writer.

I'm not contradicting Martin's words, I'm looking at them in conjunction with what he has done for other characters he himself has said are key to his story. Many characters in the books get hurt, die, or suffer the natural consequences of the world Martin has created, such as the smallfolk, or the knight the Hound and Arya find in the Riverlands who is dying from an infected wound. Other characters don't suffer the same consequences: Daenerys should have burned to dust in Drogo's funeral pyre, after all, she's human, made of flesh and blood. When asked if Daenerys was immune to fire, Martin said she was not and that the fact that Dany didn't burn was a one time only special circumstance Bran fell from a very high tower, everyone agreed he should have died, but Bran was special, destined to be the three eyed raven, so he didn't die Tyrion, as I mentioned before, should have died several times already: by the hands of the mountain clans on his way in and out of the Vale, in the battle against Robb's forces where his father put him in the most dangerous place in the formation, in the battle of the Blackwater, when the stonemen attacked his boat... But, Tyrion always gets miraculously saved, while other men around him who are stronger and more experienced die or get greyscale Arya (and the Hound) shouldn't have survived the Red Wedding. When they go in, the camp has been enclosed, they have to go through sentinels, it is described as a "one gate" to get in or out situation, this makes escape less likely. Yet they manage to get away practically unscathed. The Hound suffers more wounds at the hands of two of the Mountain's men than he does in the full blown battle outside the Frey castle. We read a lot about common girls being raped (particulary in AFFC, when Brienne is looking for Sansa) and killed during, and after, the war; but Arya never suffers that fate, even though she pretended to be a commoner from the moment she escaped The Red Keep I can list more examples, but I think these make the point. Martin may speak about other authors treating certain characters in special ways, but he's guilty of the same thing. I never claimed Jon would be the exact same. I believe my words were that he would change, but his core would remain the same. Beric changed, but he didn't completely lose the person he was. As a matter of fact, he continues to dedicate himself to the mission Ned gave him, from his first resurrection to his last death. His core remained the same. There's no basis for this. Anything is possible, but there's absolutely no indication of this happening. Last we saw LSH, she was waiting for Brienne to deliver Jaime in the Riverlands, miles and miles away from The Wall. If he's losing more and more of himself, it stands to reason there's something to lose. There was a whole 100% to start with. The very statement he makes is that with every resurrection he loses something else. Therefore, he didn't lose 80% the first time around. He indicates it is the resurrection process that deteriorates him every time he goes through it. So he started with 100%, the first time he was resurrected, he still continued fighting and outlawing his way around the Riverlands, so, maybe he lost 15-20%. The next time he was resurrected, he started with 80-85%, so after the second resurrection, he'd be down to 60-65%, and so on. He didn't lose all of himself after the first resurrection, this is clear by the fact the character himself says the process has been gradual and that the losses happen after he's resurrected, not in the times between resurrections; so, why would we presume that Jon will be equal to Beric's current sate after Jon's first resurrection? If anything, Beric's story indicates that Jon may change a little after his first resurrection, and lose more and more of himself if he is resurrected again and again. It doesn't indicate that Jon will be a husk of his former self after only the first time. She looks the way she does because her body was decomposing in the hot weather of the Riverlands for two days before it was thrown into the river, where it floated and got bloated and more damaged as it made its way south of The Twins. That's different from Beric who gets resurrected immediately after each death, and who actually has scars (meaning healed) tissue from the different wounds that caused his many deaths. Jon's body is at The Wall, where it's so cold, they keep meat frozen there for months and months, so, even if it takes a few days for his resurrection to happen, he won't look as worse for wear as LSH. If we go by the two examples given to us in the books, Jon's body will be closer to Beric's after his resurrection than LSH. I doubt it. But, again, anything is possible. It just doesn't look plausible to me, after reading the first 5 books, Sure, but we have exceptions to the rules, such as Coldhands in the books, and Benjen on the show. Martin likes to have rules for how things happen, but he likes to break his own rules too, and it's usually because.... reasons! We don't know how any of this is going to go down. If the Pink Letter has some truth on it, Ramsay defeated Stannis. It could be that Stannis escaped and is on his way to the Wall by the time Jon gets the letter. It could be that he arrives, just a couple of days after Jon is murdered. Or not. The amount of time it will take Stannis to decide could be as long as it took him other times, or it could be shorter because he has suffered more losses and would be more willing to believe Melisandre now, after he loses almost everything to Ramsey. There's no way to tell with the information we have, but a case can logically be made for several options.

Before the show caught up to the books, I lost count of all the posts I read (here and in other places) stating that Jon would stay dead, and that he was not Rhaegar and Lyanna's child because Martin is supposed to be this rebel who just doesn't do fantasy tropes. I confess I haven't read his other books, but I'm a very avid reader. I learned to read at 4 and since then, you can bet that I'm always in the middle of reading one book or anther, be they in paper or electronic. Sometimes it's two, or even three, books. When I was 12 years old I had a journal where I religiously wrote the title and author of every book I read. By 13, the list was 1,000 titles long and at 15 I stopped keeping it. It's one thing to try to subvert a trope and create something original, it's quite another to do so at the expense of story structure and logical literary plotting and characterizations. When you read as much as I have, your brain starts identifying patterns. Some patterns resonate with us because they are Universal issues that affect every human on Earth, regardless of culture, race, country of origin, religion, etc. Some of those issues are death, grief, war, the struggle between good and evil, and so on. Eventually, you pretty much develop a sense of where a story is going and where it will end up; and your appreciation for the work comes not from a surprising ending, but from the journey that takes you there: how compelling are the characters, how much can you relate, how much can you understand them, how detailed is the world they live in, etc. Sure, there are some unexpected things, but they mean nothing if they were not set up in the pages leading up to them, or if you can't see the logical chain that led to that surprising thing. Surprise, for surprise's sake is not satisfying for a reader. Let me give you a short example. Let's say I write a book about a sweet, orphan girl. She's adopted as a baby and her parents are wonderful, supportive people. She lives in a great little town and has many friends. When she turns 6, her parents give her three puppies. She takes care of them and loves them, feeds them and plays with them. She's happy and kind to strangers, her inner monologue shows no signs of any malice or evil thoughts. She's what you would call a goodie-two-shoes. There's nothing wrong with her environment or her family. She's not bullied in school, and she's not a bully either. She has many loving friendships. On her 9th birthday she wakes up, goes to the kitchen, gets a knife and kills all three dogs. The End. That little story doesn't earn its ending. It subverts the trope of the good guys being always good, it subverts the trope of having a source of dramatic tension for the protagonist. It subverts the trope of having children be good and innocent. It has a surprising ending. And yet, it's not a good story at all. There's nothing to explain the sudden cruelty and murdering impulses. The end is unearned and there was no set up or logical way to arrive at the surprising twist. I'll give Martin his due and say he does write very compelling characters, in an engaging, detailed, fully developed world. He even manages to surprise readers many times in ASOIAF: Ned's death, the Red Wedding, LSH, the Purple Wedding, Doran Martell's long game. But he is not entirely free of tropes, and frankly no author is completely. Tiny example: the Hound hitting Arya in the back of the head during the Red Wedding, leading us to think that she's dead, only to surprise us later with the revelation that she was hit with flat of the ax. To me, many of the people who were fiercely hanging on to their belief that Jon would be just some bastard and that he would stay dead, dead, dead failed to see the underlying story structure that indicated the contrary. Some failed because they simply missed it, others because they don't like the "good" guys in their stories and this includes the Starks, and Jon, and Daenerys; they prefer the flaw-ridden anti-heroes who throw children out of windows or win power and riches through their cunning, brilliant minds. Somehow, these things should be exalted, because it makes the character "more interesting" or a "winner". And so, the story structure and all the logical threads that have gone on before the current circumstances MUST be ignored, so that the guys "I" like can win. Yes, Martin talks about Beric being a shell of his former self, but the man has been resurrected "half a hundred" times (to use one of Martin's favorite writing crutches when it comes to counting something in the books). Yes, Lady Stonehart is nothing like Cat, but her death was more traumatic, she suffered heavier losses and more humiliation than Jon at her moment of deah, and her body was in the river for days before it was found and resurrected. Yes, the skinchanger says that, eventually, the warg's essence and thoughts will fade away inside the animal he/she is warging; but "eventually" is the operative word here, the warg needs to be separated from his/her own body for a long time for this to happen. There are some things that make Jon different from Beric, LSH and the skinchanger fading away inside his animals: he's Azor Ahai reborn (see Melisandre's chapter where she asks the Lord of Light to show her AA because she wants to see what is happening with Stannis, and she complains that the LoL only shows her snow), he's a Targaryen and he's special (just as Dany is special). He won't be resuscitated by Thoros, who, by his own admission, was never as devout and experienced as Melisandre; unlike Beric's umpteenth resurrection, he will be brought back only once (show Jon even asked Mel not to resurrect him again); although he died betrayed by his brothers, his state of mind was not as frail, damaged and traumatized as Catelyn's was before she died; he will not spend weeks and weeks warged into Ghost waiting to be resurrected. So, while I agree that all these resurrections set the stage for Jon's eventual return, one can not ignore that there are things that make Jon different from all the previously resurrected people. And this does not even contradict Martin's statement regarding Gandalf. His objection was that Gandalf came back almost the same, that there was no consequence to himself personally. That doesn't mean the consequences Martin has in mind have to be devastating for the character, that's an illogical leap (Beric's first resurrection wasn't devastating to him). I don't have any doubt that Jon will be changed. He needed to die so he could be AA reborn. He will be changed but at the same time he will still be Jon Snow. His core will remain the same. Circling back to tropes, I see where Martin has subverted some, but others he has kept alive and well. For an example, look no further than Tyrion's plot armor during any battle in which he's ever been involved; by Westerosi world standards, he should have been dead several times already, but he's one of Martin's 5 and the one he identifies with the most, so, on he goes, drowning his sorrows in wine while travelling through Essos. I fully expect him to survive the revolt and bloody uprising we left him in at the end of book 5.

I don't care if Cersei's death is big or small, as long as she goes knowing that all the people she hates are happy. I want her to be thoroughly defeated and betrayed by everyone she ever trusted (in the books her fall is deliciously long and gradual and I loved every minute of it). I want her to go fully knowing she was the engineer of her own fall and that she's not even 10% as smart as she thinks she is. And I want Jaimie to be the Valonqar and kill her slooooowwwwly.

Telegraph article dated March 14th, 2016 for reference: Game of Thrones: George RR Martin always intended for Shireen to meet her controversial end

Al the outrage and controversy in the forums sprouted precisely because they confirmed that Stannis consented. They said that was one of the three "Oh, shit!" moments, not that Shireen burned, but that it was Stannis who made her burn

I thought D&D confirmed that it was Stannis who gave his consent to burn Shireen. When that happened on the show and D&D commented on it afterward, I seem to remember having a discussion here with people asking how would book Stannis even order Shireen's burning since the girl and her mother are at Eastwacth by the Sea (or some other NW castle) and Stannis is neck deep in Northern snows.

Truth or fiction?

I'm very much liking the humorous tone of this thread. We're gonna need that while we stand our Watch until the final season

The making of the WW was not one the "oh, shit!" moments that George revealed to D&D. D&D have said in interviews that George revealed three things to them that will be in upcoming books that made them say "oh, shit!". D&D are also on the record saying that moment number one was the burning of Shireen and moment number two was the origin of Hodor's name. Moment number three has not been named or confirmed. Therefore, the making of the WW is not one of THE three "oh, shit!" moments revealed by George to D&D. D&D have also said that the third moment happens toward the end, so, it will probably be in S8. As far as I know, George hasn't confirmed that the CotF created the WW (by dragonglass stake through the heart or by any other means). By all indications, this is a show-only occurrence.

As "oh, shit!" as those moments are, D&D were speaking about moments that have not been written (or at least published) yet. They referred to three things Martin told them he had planned for the next books, so even book readers didn't know about them (i.e we knew about the Red Wedding because it was written and published, so, that doesn't count for these "oh, shit!" moments). D&D said Shireen's burning was moment number one and Hodor's name origins was number two. As far as I know they haven't said what moment number three is, and one would think that after last week's episode, if Ice Dragon were moment number three they would have said something already. But perhaps they haven't because no one has bothered to ask?

If Ice Dragon wasn't the third "oh, shit!" moment, that is a scary thought. The only thing to top that would be for the Walkers to win the war and for Bran to be writing the final chapter from a very, very deep cave, as the Walkers are closing in; or from Ashai because Westeros went the way of The Doom

I was pulling for KC, but Andrew has done extremely well and is a deserving winner. @KCMUSSMAN, thanks for the pictures! I think we lost a lot of the details with the lighting of your room. Awesome job!

I don-t think we will. It seems to me, D&D want the audience to think that Sansa will execute Arya only to surprise us with Sansa ordering LF to die. And then we're supposed to go "OMG! Sansa is SO smart!! I thought LF was manipulating her, but it turned out SHE had him fooled. Go Sansa!!"

If Littlefinger wanted Brienne out of the way and Sansa grants him his wish, the options I see for Sansa's motivation are: 1) Sansa trusts LF and sends Brienne away because she thinks whatever course of action he suggests is the right thing to do 2) Sansa doesn't trust LF, but sends Brienne away to make him believe that she trusts him I think the writers are trying to sell us number 2, but not doing a very good job of it because they want to surprise us with the big reveal of Sansa condemning LF to death and Arya executing him.

Every time I see this thread has been updated, I think I'll come and find something encouraging.... SIGH! EVERY.DAMN.TIME!!!