Aemon Targaryen

Aegon seems pretty unlikely in the books

sum total of season is absolutely nothing new was learnt so this makes the finale a 2/10 for me

So if Jon hadn't gone South to convince Dany about the threat ... And minus the stupid plan of a wight hunt --- which the show itself has proved was futile as Cersei would use it --- The NK would have just been stuck in shuffle mode North of the Wall?!?

Hope GRRM has a better way to get NK past the Wall than a "jump the wight" moment

episode seems kinda lame so far?

Ppl, I have no access ... please update on key bits ... please!!!!

Two possibilities: 1. to hint to the audience that the NK can see the future. 2. they are even worse idiots. This could be another "reverse honeypot", but it is just too glaring obvious to me, and the chains clinking at the start of Season 7, Ep 1, too obvious ... so I still believe 1, despite much evidence of D&D's idiocy.

Wight hunt the new 'jump the shark'.

One of the very first sounds this season was the chains carried by the NK clinking. Deus ex machina ... but maybe intentional: the NK could foresee he would need the chains, just as there was the air of inevitability about the way he took down Viserion with the javelin.

Arya clearly entrapping LF. Just like when Jon came back to life, I wish that all the dense people who refused to believe Jon would come back to life would APOLOGISE GODDAMN IT for their blockheadedness. Any reader with a modicum of intuition could spot that RLJ also implied annulment, not least given KG at ToJ.

It's a Satanic inversion and parody of the Children of the Forest's symbols. The CoTF made the cold hell that is the WW with the very best of intentions: to give men their just desserts, and put "balance" back into the world. The idea that the WW are still fulfilling that balance ethos is mistaken. In a sense, GRRM is taking the piss at Lucas' simplistic pantheism (the force). The CoTF ended up creating a Frankenstein deathmonster (the WW), even though they intended to simply "balance things out". There is a whole Luciferian/Frankenstein thing with the WW -- they, esp the NK, are evil angels. But also a Job-like aspect. A prime motivator for the WW using CoTF symbols may be that they resent being born: they curse their creator ... think of the Replicants in Blade Runner. The NK wants nothing more than to put out the eyes of their Dr Eldon Tyrell. I'm guessing that more than anything they thus want to destroy the two things from which they come: CoTF (which includes Bran now as a greenseer) and men (especially First Men and Starks). They've succeeded with the CoTF, just men to go. I think all the ecological astronomical stuff is either wrong or just handwaving.

It would be fitting if Littlefinger came a cropper on his dagger ... i.e. his role in causing the war of the five kings is revealed. I.e. after tension between Jon and Sansa, a revelation about the dagger would tie in with Bran and make them realise they are both Starks (even though Jon isn't).

It's pretty interesting to speculate what George's contract with HBO says. I get the strong sense that George will be much less inclined to co-operate and feed tidbits to the show now that it's overtaken TWoW. So the show's going to become ever looser, except for major plot points that George may have been obliged to reveal (but which he surely can't be under any obligation to keep to re: his unwritten book). Put it this way - it's in George's long-term literary interest to not lift a finger for the show any more - it's made him famous and rich, but like the WhiteWalkers, it's gotten out of control. The worse the show is, the better TwoW and the last book(s) will look in the long term.

I really hope George makes FM/HoBaW worthwhile. While I am usually pro-show, this to me was the first time the show really seems to have laid a big turd on the books. No way George leaves Braavos at that.

Yes, that's perfect. First time as kingslayer; second as kinslayer.