Davrum

The Iron Islands stuff was an absolute joke. The Kingsmoot was goofy as hell and then somehow they just slipped out of the harbour with 50+ ships and nobody raised the alarm? Laughable. Most of the rest of it was solid to great though. Sansa vs Baelish was one of the all-time best scenes in the show. The Bran section was very well done too. And solid work with Arya and Dany. Gave it 8 overall.

The Brienne/Tormund thing alone makes this a 17/10, but since we're only allowed to go for a 10/10 I'll settle for that.

Wait ... how in seven hells is Davos going to know what happened when he left the camp? Mel sure as heck didn't tell him and everyone else who was there is dead.

See, the reason this doesn't fly for me is that the tactics of the spear and shield-equipped Unsullied are actually perfectly suited to fighting in the exact type of area in which they were fighting. Typical spear and shield fighters of that type stay close-ranked. They don't separate. The Unsullied have drilled over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over not to separate when stuff gets hairy. It's pretty much all they do. If anything, especially being outnumbered, it helps out a lot to have a wall or two to cover a flank or two. Especially when most of the opposition is armed with piddly little daggers. For a group of soldiers who've studied and trained in nothing but combat tactics their entire lives they were woeful in that scene. It just doesn't just make no sense in terms of character, it makes negative sense.

:agree: Yeah, that fight scene made zero sense. The Unsullied fought in almost the exact opposite way to how the show has told us the Unsullied would fight. According to many past episodes if there's one thing they're famous for, it's their coolness under pressure and their discipline. Not losing their heads and spreading out to give their opposition the advantage.

I gave it 8 again. A lot of the dialogue was too speechy and inorganic and the Unsullied fight scene was just dumb, but the rest of it was quite a lot of fun. The Cersei/High Sparrow and Sansa/Littlefinger scenes were the best.

(God I love Varys. Great quote.) Because he is dropping Sansa in Ramsay's lap. Which is why the real question is what does Sansa really mean to Petyr Baelish? Either that or the real question is do DB & DB know what they're doing?

Jon The Beheader showed very clearly that burning alive is certainly considered far more cruel than Westerosi are accustomed to when he defied a king to put an arrow in Mance. Roose has told Ramsay - and thereby us in the audience - several times that flaying alive is considered an extreme measure even in the context of the violent time and place we're watching. It's not about picking a side. It's about picking up on information.

Everyone decapitates, from KL to The Wall. That's just standard procedure. Skinning entire battalions (and children) alive though? That's some extreme business. And Ramsay does it much more than usual even for a Bolton. And he does it for show. He does it to send a message. Everyone in The North would know of it by now and so would anyone who expects to fight alongside or against The Boltons. As for why LF would care, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. We can never be sure of anything with that guy. That's what makes him so fun to watch.

100% true. Folks from different sides of the same street can pronounce names quite differently. I still think though, for the sake of keeping all the ducks in a row, it makes sense from a showmaking perspective to have the names in this world pronounced with some sense of convention. Sometimes, in storytelling, too much realism is a less-than-good thing.

Show Ramsay was acting but so was LF. There's no way Ramsay's rep for bloodthirsty acts hasn't spread far and wide by now. Especially since Roose has made it clear several times that just because the flayed man is on their sigil, it's far from standard operating procedure for the "modern" House Bolton. The fact that Ramsay leaves whole armies worth of skinless men in his wake would be far from secret. And someone as smart as LF knows someone who does that in public probably isn't the nicest guy in private either.

I agree with all of your post except the bit about them taking pains to correct anything. To me it seems like there's always been dude-ass on the show, maybe even as much as lady-ass, so seeing those lads gluting it up doesn't feel like the showmakers are doing anything different. In fact when in the first three episodes alone we've had tits galore, plus ladyfrontal, in the Meereen brothel alleys, and then the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over-the-top KL whorehouse scene, the imbalance feels "worse" than ever. As for the ETA: I'm torn too. Obviously it'd be a classier show worth taking more seriously if it felt less pervy, but it's also a lot of fun to take it less seriously as a pervy, somewhat guilty, pleasure.

:agree: Well, except that I do see the purpose of it when it doesn't have something to do with the plot. The pervy purpose.

It certainly is a dice roll by LF, but then he's been known to roll a dice or two.

Probably because she proved in a huge way she has his back somewhat when she didn't turn him in to Royce. She had him in the palm of her hand and chose not to crush him. That was the defining moment of their relationship so far.

Oh, you know, just the imbalance where we cooooooooooooooooooonstantly see the frontal bits women cover up with their swimsuits but almost never ever see the frontal bits men cover up with theirs. And of course seeing a naked lady front on is comparable to seeing a naked dude front on. If this is a show meant for mature audiences then there's nothing especially taboo about the pillar and stones. If anything their defining feature is their comedic ugliness.

It doesn't matter what the culture is that's being presented, the choices in how to present that culture are not pre-ordained. The showmakers are choosing an imbalanced presentation when such a presentation is not even remotely close to necessary in order to present an imbalanced culture. That's why the choices they make are the choices of straight male pervs. As a straight male perv myself I enjoy it quite a bit, but it's just goofy to pretend it's not an unnecessarily, primarily straight male pervy show in that regard.

It's not about the attitude of the characters, it's about the presentation by the showmakers. It's about how physically exposed each character is on screen and about how the presentation by the showmakers fails to match the attitude of the characters consistently between men and women. The nudity imbalance is so stark it's distracting. As a straight man I'm not about to complain that it's way, way, way in my favour, but the bias toward the naked womanly form is so blatant that not to understand the complaints of those who prefer the naked male form is to be willfully naive at this point.

I don't think you understand the concept of rareness. Or how often my drunk friend falls out of the back of a cab.

Nooooo, nobody forgets that. Quite the opposite in fact. They remember it very well precisely because full frontal dude nudes on this show are so ridiculously rare compared to the ladynudes.

I gave it an 8. The best scenes were Jon laying down the law, Marge vs Cersei and Littlefinger/Sansa/Roose/Ramsay but I also liked that the Brienne/Pod relationship developed somewhat. The Tyrion and Varys stuff felt a little forced, but those two are always fun. The only scenes which felt a little dull were those with Arya.

That's a great point about the consequence of downplaying Slynt's role. I thought the Marge beatdown of Cersei could have gone longer though, and the Arya sections were the least interesting of the episode. As for Cersei's level of power, I think you're a little unfair on the filmmaking. To me the difference between what those two men thought about the amount of power Cersei had and the amount she actually displayed was somewhat intentional, and all about showing that she's being underestimated somewhat. At least by those two men. At least for now. It's not as clear as it could be, especially since Kevan dismissed her as Queen Mother when she was actually still Queen Regent, and did have the power to stack the small council, but I'd stop short of calling it bad filmmaking.

:agree: 1000% They don't get everything right, but they got that right. We still have to see what Littlefinger's exact thinking is, but so far I'm all for this particular change.

1000%. And if anything they're getting more pervy as they go. The latest episode, with practically a zoom to full frontal crotch shot of one of the ladies, followed by a backside shot of a man who is, shall we say, past his best (bless him), was so blatant it seemed almost to mock those who've called the show on its wild nudity imbalance in the past. Not that I mind it that much, I'm a perv myself. But by now those who deny the show is pervy have no legs left to stand on.

"Hated" is too strong a word for how I felt about it but for the most part ... :agree: