SeanC

One issue I'm really wondering about Sansa's coming characterization on the show: It's quite clear that Theon is, at some point, going to tell her that her brothers are alive. Obviously a big moment for her, and she'd be happy for the news. But due to the way the story has been changed, the writers have put Sansa in a very awkward position regarding the miller's boys (somewhat mirroring the show itself). In the book story, Theon's killing the innocent boys was thematically setting up his rescue of Jeyne, another innocent who didn't matter. But here, the framing is clearly Theon making up for his (alleged) crimes against the Stark family, as represented by, well, an actual Stark. What is Sansa supposed to say, if anything, about the people Theon actually killed? She didn't know them, and to her their deaths would really be quite a secondary consideration to the news that her brothers are still alive. It's a very awkward situation for the show, which, if handled badly, could end up making both Sansa and the show itself seem dismissive of Theon's actual victims.

The character description sounds much more like a combination of Meribald and the Elder Brother (the latter was a "gruff ex-soldier" and veteran of many battles). I think that gives a good idea of why we would see that character.

"Exploiting the poor"? Why would he not be sincere? His whole movement is borne out of colossal socio-economic chaos; he's lived his whole life ministering to the poor, and living a life of poverty and self-denial. Whether Olenna is a hypocrite is really not the question. She is an aloof aristocrat with no connection to the people her house is governing by force. This whole system is bad for the people, and has brought about the dreadful war that gave birth to the Sparrow movement. Shouldn't the Seven Kingdoms be run by a government that puts ordinary people first? And yes, they did during the civil conflict. But the High Septon is basically threatening to call on the followers of the Faith throughout the Seven Kingdoms to throw off the aristocracy, a powerful message that has historically found a wide audience in the Seven Kingdoms (and in the real world).

Er, yes, because he doesn't think they will be able to do it -- which Olenna, after he responds, looks quite rattled by, suggesting that he is right. Having leaders who have an actual connection to the population would make the lives of the smallfolk better. The Tyrells fed the city, but they also created starvation in the first place during the wars; the point being that they don't actually care about the people in the city, only what it can do for them. The show itself wanted that -- hence, why they played Shae's actions up as a lover's spite, and had her pull a knife on Tyrion, to make him justified in killing her. They created a sympathetic Shae, but then blackwashed her to protect Tyrion in the end. D&D and GRRM have both spoken of the HS as completely sincere in what he says.

Regarding casting:

Which they already had plenty of reason for, so it wasn't necessary. Sam and Gilly have already pledged to stick together, and Sam will presumably go to Oldtown because Jon orders him to, like in the book. So why would she stay if Sam was going?

I really don't see how that fits with how Sansa's story has been set up at all. The Vale is her stage for learning the game of thrones, and her connection to Littlefinger is her most significant one; he's the primary antagonist of her story.

GRRM typically describes that rapes are occurring in war zones. Which they are. And the show is really not giving us the POV of rape victims; that's one of the problems. I don't believe for a second the show is depicting rape as more horrific than the books. Look no further than how they handle sex slavery and the sex trade, generally for fanservice purposes. The writers also had Jaime rape Cersie (and they claim that they intended that) and never brought it up again, with Jaime going right back to his hero arc as if nothing had happened.

I didn't say that he "just" wants that, or that he represents everybody -- heck, there's not even really one notion of what the interests of the common people are (hence, modern politics). But he clearly speaks for a very large group of them, unlike every other political actor in the series, who represents a very narrow dynastic interest where ordinary people are just chattels and pawns. The ordinary people of Westeros are already oppressed within a feudal system, and at the mercy of a handful of families who have just subjected the whole continent to a tremendously bloody war. The High Sparrow represents the common people's backlash against this malgovernance. I don't think a state run by him would be perfect, by any means, but I don't think it would ever be worse than what Westeros currently has, and given his emphasis on economic justice I expect it would be better in quite a few respects for the poorest Westerosi. A lot of the commentary around this storyline in the books has talked about the need to preserve "separation of church and state", etc., ignoring that Westeros does not have that. It's just that under the Targaryens it was the church that was basically a propaganda wing of the government, serving its interests. The High Sparrow wants to end that, and wants to hold the aristocracy to the same rules as everyone else -- and that makes him dangerous to the entrenched interests. It doesn't make him a saint, either, but if I were a commoner in King's Landing I'd back him over Cersei or the Tyrells every day of the week.

The Sparrows made men do nude walks too in the books, though not to the High Septon. It happened to Septon Ollidor, who was dragged out of a brothel and paraded through the streets naked, dooming his candidacy to replace the High Septon that Cersei had murdered.

Well, yeah, because this is a world where notions of being just are intrinsically linked with religion. Stannis does not serve the gods, and therefore he cannot be truly just. There's nothing unusual about that, either in the world of Westeros or in most of world history. True religious pluralism within a state has a very short history in European civilization, and in Westeros the monarch on the Iron Throne has always been explicitly allied with the Faith of the Seven. It would be like expecting a medieval Anglican cleric to back a Catholic for the throne of England. The show has amped up the negative aspects of the Sparrows in the streets, but even then we've seen them feeding the poor, etc. The High Sparrow is clearly talking about a class revolution in Westeros, aimed at bringing down the nobles and making them subject to the same laws as everyone else. As to the food supply, he's basically dared the Tyrells to cut it off, and said that if they try it their own peasants will not back them, which the Queen of Thorns clearly thinks may be true. Social revolution on this scale is never bloodless or easy, but the aristocracy has already engulfed the entire continent in war, and Cersei quite nakedly runs the entire realm solely for the convenience of her own family. Why would he not want her gone? As for whether he cares about common people in Westeros of a different Faith, perhaps not, but the Faith is effectively the only religion south of the Neck anyway, so that's not actually much of a concern.

Why? They're no worse than any other group in the story, and in many respects they're much better. They're the only political organization in the story trying to represent the interests of the common people, and they're completely correct that the ruling families and their apparatchiks have engulfed the continent in warfare out of a glorified family feud, leading to untold suffering, particularly in the Riverlands, which is where most of the Sparrows are from. They are a populist religious movement in opposition to the corrupt aristocracy and church hierarchy, as regularly occurred in the Middle Ages. They're not saints, by any means, but they're nowhere near the worst people in the story. And I'd certainly side with them over Cersei. That's a huge stretch. If anything, the portrayal of the Faith Militant has used the focus on their gay-bashing Loras to paint them as much more evil to modern audiences than the Sparrows in the books. I haven't seen anyone who's rooting against Margaery or Loras.

Sansa understood that Tyrion was kinder than the other Lannisters in the books. The difference is that in the books they were never friends or allies, because GRRM respected the characters and the situation enough to not try to hide that they were on different sides, as the show did.

I have to say, from my observations of the Unsullied/general audience reactions, the changes made to the Winterfell storyline have not done Theon any favours. This is the arc where he really reclaimed audience sympathy, but the general tenor of audience attitudes toward him, that I've seen, is contempt at his perceived continual failure to do anything to help Sansa, on whom the arc has been recentered.

One moment I found hilarious: Sam giving Jon the dragonglass dagger and helpfully explaining that it is what he used to kill White Walkers. Er, did Sam really not tell Jon (the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch) about that until now?

After my prior skepticism about the Pink Letter being in the show, Jon gets brought up in Sansa's storyline completely out of nowhere, so perhaps it is in after all.

Well, apparently the only people she sees are Theon and Ramsay now, so her options are kinda limited. Though why that old lady didn't think it was a good idea to light the candle herself is a question for the ages.

Ramsay was clearly sitting in some kind of office, which wouldn't be in the Broken Tower (or else that's an absolutely terrible place to choose to set a rescue signal), so i would imagine Theon went directly to Ramsay.

Sam and Gilly's leaving the Wall could hardly be more heavily foreshadowed at this point.

Winterfell Story Assessment PRO: Sansa isn't "full Jeyne", though I was never expecting that. PRO: This episode should at least shut up the "it wasn't rape!" people up, given that she's physically traumatized and locked in her room. CON: At this point it's pretty clear that the only thing Sansa is going to accomplish at Winterfell is to escape from it, which is basically total failure at her original objective. CON: While, again, maybe this could be revisited, there's no sign here that Sansa being raped is going to be addressed on any level beyond "Ramsay raped her, and she acts a bit teary, but she's a tough chick so whatever".

I've talked about this subject a few times over in the thread on adaptation, and in general I've liked the show's version of Ramsay more, because Rheon brings a bit of levity to the part that is wholly absent from the book version. Toning Ramsay down a bit goes a long way, as he's not one of the GRRM's more inspired creations, and in general the creative impetus behind him in any given scene appears to be "what's the worst thing Ramsay could say or do in this scene? Do that." You could say the same thing about Joffrey, to a great extent, but Joffrey, while one-dimensional, brought out a lot more interesting interactions with various characters than Ramsay has done.

You were supposed to be. That book is about exploring who Tyrion is at his lowest point. The actors have said it wasn't a rape. The writers have said that it was, and even offered their artistic justification for why they changed it. Which may just be them covering their asses, but there you go.

We're not, though. Sansa's story has shown her growing as a player, and is centered in the Vale of Arryn. We're not past book territory here; her book plot was basically discarded, and she was given someone else's.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. Yes, Sansa has her own story, and is not a means to someone else's. And the rape of Ramsay's bride is a means to someone else's story. It has nothing to do with her being "different from any other woman"; it has to do with the writers taking away her story and her character development in the service of this plot (which is exactly what this story has done; any trace of the development she showed in 408 has vanished this season, apart from her wardrobe). It is a complete repeat of a story she already had, except even worse. The Vale has been set up as a major part of the next phase of the story, and Sansa is our view into it; it is her stage. But it wasn't shown through the POV of the victim. Theon was the POV, because the point of the rape was his reaction. And Sansa has been a passive participant all season, as part and parcel of how this storyline has been written. That's why I object to it.

I just have zero faith in the writers to handle this. Sansa was barely even given any time to mourn the murders of her own family (including precisely zero time to mourn the deaths of two family members whose continued survival is evidently supposed to be a huge revelation to her this season). I'm not expecting anything more than "Sansa looks sad/cries a bit, but then carries on because she is a tough chick".