Hecate7

It's not fine. We hear him complaining about it, but Elliot can't hear the whole conversation.

Or there is a third possibility: Francine didn't know she was pregnant until she'd already been out on her own a couple of months, and by then Joe simply refused all her calls and would not speak to her. It's not so much "keeping a secret" as it is just not having the opportunity to tell Joe the truth. Sure, she could maybe have shown up 8 months pregnant, but who wants to do that if they're just going to be escorted out by security? I suspect Francine got it together once she discovered she was pregnant again, so maybe Joe's tough love did some good.

Workstudy isn't what you think it is. It's a cap on your earnings based on matching funds from businesses. A "workstudy" job isn't time you study and are paid to do so, it's time during which you serve lunch or shelve books or guide tours through a museum or whatever, (and don't study), and your hourly wage is half paid by the business and half paid by your workstudy grant. When that grant is used up, you lose your job and have to find a new one. It doesn't fill any gaps any more than working as a hotel maid or at McDonald's. The fact remains that 4.0 by itself won't get you a full ride in most cases, and he'd have to already be in-state where those "several state schools" offer free rides to people with 4.0s even if all their extracurriculars were athletics and they no longer have the ability to do those activities. Jackson's injury removed the reason for most schools' interest in him. It is perfectly realistic that his 4.0 did not compensate for the loss of those abilities. Obviously he paid for some sort of school, because he's a mechanic now. Not sure how realistic it is that he'd be able to afford those fees, either--Junior colleges and Vo-techs are not cheap.

If someone accused the kids of "never having any problem swallowing," to their faces, then they WERE guilty. That is sexual abuse. Of course they didn't--only a drunk misogynist in a bar says stuff like that. It's not a cultural divide, it's a man demeaning a woman with sex because he can. It's a man sharing his sexual fantasies of what this girl must have done to get ahead, because now he has an excuse, and it's gross and it's supposed to be. However, the fact that he said she "never had any problem" does bring up the question, how does he know what her PAST history of swallowing, prior to working for e-corp, was? It does imply she's swallowed HIM, or that on some obscure level he's angry that she didn't. I agree. I wondered at the time, if his attack, and her response, were both inside her head, because it was just so OTT and so out of keeping with the beginning of the exchange.

At least the woman Darlene killed, had actually killed people. She had actually done bad things specifically to Darlene's family. But the people this woman helped kill, had done nothing to anyone. That puts Darlene a little above her in my book. Darlene at least had revenge as a motive. The woman she killed only had ambition. Susan is not as good as Darlene--the people she killed could not defend themselves, had never hurt her, and had done nothing to deserve being killed. To tell your best friend's little girl that she's never had any problem swallowing, suggests an entire BOATLOAD of sexual fantasies Mr. Plumber didn't act on. At least I hope he didn't. He deserved way worse than what Angela said to him. What he did was creepy, and defending him is almost as creepy. There was absolutely no reason to get explicit about what sexual favors he fantasizes she's performed in the boardroom. Most people would assume that either a) she's done sexual favors, which in fact she has NOT, or b) she's blackmailing these people, which she is. But assuming that, isn't the same thing as taunting her obscenely or demeaning her with sex. That he leaped at the chance to verbally sexually abuse his friend's child makes him a giant pervert and misogynist in my book. Yes, I would have wondered about sexual favors, too, but I would NEVER have spoken to the child of a friend that way, no matter what I thought she'd done. I'd have asked questions, not just shoved my projections down her throat so obscenely.

I'm disgusted by the whole "dead wife" plotline. So he's milked sympathy from Iris and everyone else over his tragic loss, single parenthood, etc... for DECADES, but Francine gets to pay the price for his deceit AND get blamed because "I have a brother???" OMG. Joe does not deserve to know he had a son--he was eager to throw Francine out and call her dead. He is LESS entitled to be his son's father than Francine is to be her daughter's mother. OTOH, comic books really couldn't do girls or women right at all, and this is a charming struggle to get a handle on a narrative born of a universe of dead mothers and career girlfriends, and the odd cookie-baking Mom or villainous beauty queen. It'll be interesting to see what they manage to do with it.

GPA isn't that relevant in getting college scholarships in the US anymore. Just having a 4.0 won't automatically get you a scholarship. You have to know which ones to apply for and have someone to walk you through the process, because it's very complicated. You have to be National Merit and get a 100% on your PSAT to automatically get a full ride. There are some merit-based scholarships, but they are the same dollar amount they were in 1978. You can maybe buy one textbook with a State of Kansas Scholarship, for instance. (Once upon a time those were meant to cover your entire tuition, but it went up and they didn't). And Community College is cheaper, and obviously he went or he wouldn't be a mechanic. That also costs money, but it's supposed to be cheaper than mainstream universities.

Darlene is the brunette with big lips who looks exactly like Elliott with big lips and false eyelashes. Angela is the blonde whose mother died. Darlene is Elliott's sister. Angela is Elliott's crush. They are two different characters. Angela didn't believe that what she said was right or true, she believed it would hurt the asshole plumber in the same way that his statements about her "swallowing" had hurt her. He wasn't out for truth, justice, and Angela's Dad when he called her a whore and slammed her for swallowing. It seemed clear to me that he more resented the sexual protection afforded Angela by being "friend's daughter," than anything Angela had actually done, or he'd have chosen another way to hurt her, or focused more on her Dad and less on his sexual fantasies about her.

Exactly! This! Why is it ok that Elliot killed Tyrell in cold blood for what appears to be no real reason at all? Why does this lawyer have the right to live at all, let alone live so incredibly extravagantly, when she is sitting on a heap of dead bodies whose murderers she cleared of all charges? Lawyer lady had it coming, actually. Darlene is a mess, but I don't judge her for this particular murder. I get bored with her "little miss badass" act though. Angela chose her classist, nasty speech very carefully and deliberately, after thinking over what the plumber had said to her. Frankly it bothered me more that she didn't seem to realize that plumbers make as much money as she does, than that she went after him as hurtfully as possible. We haven't seen Angela's father, and if he can't be bothered to talk to her himself then I don't really care how he feels.

Until very recently, the name Winds of Winter meant you were pretty safe.

That's not my takeaway. ALL of the adults knew the truth, but didn't care. So Sansa speaking up would not have made any difference at all, except that someone would have said that both Ned's daughters being liars must take after their mother. The engagement would have still gone forward--it was Robert's idea, not Joffrey's. Sansa didn't speak out, because she could sense that there was something in the air more "important" than the truth. A wolf was going to be lost that day no matter what choice Sansa made.

Because Arya never expressed a desire for a romance, marriage, or children. From a very early age she's been clear that those things are not for her. To assume that she's just a little girl who doesn't know what she's talking about, and just hasn't met the right boy yet, is very insulting to the character. Why even bother making characters like her, if the message is always going to be, "but then she grew out of it and settled down with a nice boy and was a great little wife and mother?" I would gag if GRRM actually has Arya end up at Winterfell with 4.5 children. What happens when the kids start playing dress-up with Mommy's stolen face collection? Gendry is a blacksmith, raised as a noble bastard. I would not wish a wife like Arya on anyone, let alone Gendry of all people, who has really done nothing to deserve to be married to a girl whose fantasies all revolve around cutting throats. He's more of a match for Sansa, but I can't see her turning her back on her ambitions for love now. If she could, he at his forge and she at her needle would be a fine pair. It's not the PTSD. Everybody in this show has PTSD. It's that to make that ending fit, Arya would have to completely and utterly change as a character, inside and out. It's not about not wanting a victory for Arya, it's about not wanting her entire characterization completely invalidated.

GRRM's style is that at least one character who has earned a happy ending will die very near the ending of the story. Also, there will be an awful lot of graves for the few (or lone) survivor to put flowers on at the end. There are usually lots of deaths near the end, so I'm not so much trying to figure out who will die, as figure out who besides Arya won't. Arya isn't going to die, but her survival is the sweet that must be balanced with a whole ton of bitter, such as her being the lone surviving Stark, or Winterfell existing at the expense of her permanent banishment, or some other really difficult situation. I see no problem with Sansa becoming Queen AFTER Danaerys, if Jon Snow or Tyrion is King and she has to give Winterfell to someone else, like Arya or Bran, even if the path is by deceit. She could become Queen before Danaerys, if Baelish, Tyrion, or Theon is king and she marries partly to kill him, clearing the way for Dany, and dies herself as a result. I could see Sansa reuniting with Tyrion to win against Cersei, while Jon marries Dany for much the same reason, both realizing there's love in their convenient matches right before the deaths of Tyrion and Dany, who are IMO the characters marked for death. That plus the loss of an eye or a limb might entitle them to marry each other and live in relative happiness as long as they both firmly believe that Bran and Arya are dead, and name their kids after the Stark family. I think San/San and Gendry/Arya are right out, as both are entirely too sweet.

I thought Ray's speech about the dog was about Ray becoming Elliot's master. Ray doesn't have to worry about Elliot going to the authorities, because Elliot is trapped in a room with nothing. He will get food, medicine, a place to pee, etc...if Ray decides to give it to him. If Elliot doesn't cooperate or Ray decides he's a liability, all Ray has to do is just leave Elliot in that room and let him die. He doesn't even have to actually kill him. At the moment, he doesn't even have to threaten him. Elliot is smart enough to realize what he has to do.

Read some of GRRM's other books. It's not his style to have a "bittersweet ending" that means heavy losses in the beginning and then lots of victories for the main characters for the final two entire books. His style usually involves at least one last minute death of a character you liked and thought was home free, the wholesale sacrifice of a boatload of characters you had hope for in the Final Battle, and the ONE character who gets a "happy ending" earns it because he prevented something EVEN WORSE from happening--nobody gets a real happy ending as in settling down with a nice family around them. That's simply not his style. Often a character you didn't like saves one (out of six) characters you did like, and redeems himself that way, but more often he fails and redeems himself by annually putting a rose on that character's grave. THAT's a GRRM "bittersweet" ending. I doubt he'll kill Arya or Bran, which means he pretty much has to kill practically everyone else.

^^^^^This, so much. Yes!

Exactly! She's not thinking ahead at all. She's just thinking in punitive terms, not in terms of any kind of real freedom. Sure, a slave rebellion involves killing a few of the masters, but it's not enough to jsut do that. And her attitude towards the suffragettes is fascinating to me--I think she's just jealous.

It is also the name of the attractive young housekeeper hanged for killing Victor's brother because of a locket the monster slipped into her pocket.

I didn't get that at all. The puffy man Lily killed seemed to recognize her, which means he may have done a lot of icky things we don't know about. He did put his hands around her neck at one point, and so perhaps she knows he's killed a few hookers in his time. Maybe she barely survived her last encounter with him. Maybe he forced himself on her last time. Turnabout is fair play--what if men were as afraid of getting murdered by prostitutes, as women are afraid of getting murdered by johns or bad dates? What if, when a man was found dead, people asked, "well what was he doing walking alone at that time of night?" That said, I think we were meant to be horrified by Lily's murderous nature. I think it's more about the way he was indifferent to their free will, and to me, that's not enough to make him a villain. I only remember that Lily and John Clare are monsters when they are threatening Victor--the rest of the time they seem no worse than anyone else. I still feel for Victor, especially when he is confronted by his creatures. I don't think what he's done is half as bad as what John Clare or Ethan have done. Although no one has ever found a snuff film, a few serial killers have filmed their crimes. And quite a lot of rapists film it and put it on the Internet, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine an underground, black market sort of cartel creating and distributing that sort of thing. Given the staggering popularity of splatter movies, horror films in which girls are punished for sex, and erotica which simulates a snuff film, it's not surprising that people would fear the existence of snuff films. Apparently there's no need for them, because good filmmakers can simulate that kind of thing without actually having to kill anybody. I don't think it's about "puritanical hysteria about sex," so much as the belief that getting naked in front of a camera for money for people you've never heard of before could turn out to be horribly dangerous. Yep. Brona said something about how in the future she and Ethan would have sex "like everyone else, after you've paid." She took it back by morning, too, so Ethan was never really a john, even though Brona was a prostitute by trade.

The men who spat on her recognized her. They had seen her naked and they knew she had male genitals. They were former customers. They had no fear of being judged by Dorian or Angelique. I doubt any of them were invited to the ball. In a larger group, they might have kept silent because of guilt by association. Angelique is just feminine enough that without speaking to her, most people would not be able to put their finger on what's off about her. The society ladies at the ball, unused to seeing men in drag or ladies of the night, wouldn't necessarily even notice. The men there, more worldly, might see right through Angelique, but not want it known how they guessed her secret. It's actually in their interests to pretend not to know anything at all about her. Vanessa and Lyle would have known at a glance, but they wouldn't want to ruin her evening. Finally, the witches wouldn't stir the pot because they have far bigger fish to fry than just humiliating Dorian's latest flame--it wasn't in their interests for the ball to fall apart or be over early.

Edric Storm did in fact go near Robert, but Robert didn't care for any of his bastards the way Ned did Jon Snow. Funny how nobody found Ned's care of his own bastard the slightest bit suspicious.

Again, you're judging the sex, not the child. It's not about the sex. The parent was involved in the sex. The child was not.

Arya is left-handed.

On a purely superficial level, sure. But really the Dothraki are just more overt and obvious about it. It's an anecdote by a conservative meant to deliver a point, not a scientific study by Johns Hopkins or anything like that. The "prison population" doesn't exclude falsely convicted people, people there for smoking pot, people there for breaking laws that didn't used to even exist, etc...Moreover, there are plenty of people from single parent homes, same sex homes, remarried homes with several sets of stepparents, people raised by their grandmothers, people who grew up in orphanages, even, who never end up anywhere near a prison. More than one president was raised by a single mother with the influence of a grandfather--I guess they'd have sent Father's Day cards to granddad. Was Larry Elder one of the inmates? A parole officer? A guard? How did he know how many sent Mother's or Father's Day cards anyway? It's anecdotal, not hard evidence of anything. A greeting card once a year proves very little--perhaps those mothers were very problematic as well. BTW, it wasn't peer reviewed because Larry Elder is a personality, not a researcher. He is an inspirational speaker and can say what he likes--it doesn't have to be true because he's not even really a journalist. His job is to say stuff that conservatives and libertarians like, not to present hard evidence or solid research. The man likes "Atlas Shrugged." Nuff said. Think tanks are not to be confused with the research departments of universities. They are not paid to tell the truth--they are paid to make conservative money sources happy. Nobody would bother to peer review this type of "research," nor would anyone make the effort to "debunk" it, because it's not even pretending to be science.

But he IS incapable of protecting her. No one can protect her. She got that one right. It's ludicrous to take that statement as some kind of mistreatment of Jon. She's already had everything done to her, except murder.