ADanceWithCats

A 9. I loved it. The CGI on Drogon was horrible, but it was emotionally powerful - it hit me in all the right feels. Metawise, the dispelling of the 'Stan is actually cool, you just don't see it' meme, and the subsequent twist that it's Martin's idea - so that people can't whine about fanfic - was a cool bonus, too. I love the Stannis arc this season.

OK, let me spell this out for you, because you seem to miss my point. - Having an opinion critical sensu "negative" about something is not evidence of some higher thinking or capabilities than having a positive opinion about this thing. It's just having a different opinion. - Contrariwise, an opinion critical sensu "of or relating to the judgments of critics about books, movies, art, etc.", need not necessarily be negative. Hence, again, you cannot a priori assume that those who have a positive opinion do not employ their higher faculties. Yet you iterate statements such as 'actually thinking' or 'some of us are capable'. This is what my beef is with - even though you claim you are not attempting to artificially inflate your importance, your language says otherwise. Stop that, and the conversation will become much more pleasant for everyone. :) That said, this exercise somewhat bores me, so this will be my last post on the subject.

Come on, you literally wrote: "I feel like I have to apologize for actually thinking". This heavily suggests that you think that other people, especially those with another opinion than yours, don't. And here you do this again. Pray tell, what special capability do you need for this? Bitter, relentless hatred that the show refuses to conform to your expectations? e: I mean, I mostly find your indignation pretty ridiculous. :D But, in general, such otherising of those who have a different opinion is pretty nasty. e2: You mean the Rant threads? But the Rant threads are designed specifically to be circlejerking cesspools, given how no discussion is allowed there. Why should anyone take what's posted in them seriously?

Yes, you great thinker, you. :rolleyes: Don't confuse 'coming at the show from a position of hatred and finding arguments to validate your feelings' with 'thinking'. What you should apologise for is for insinuating that others don't think. You're no special snowflake... other people simply think and like what they see. That makes you - or them - no better. Seriously, stop with the straw. It's not even cute.

You are posting in the episode discussion thread without even having seen the episode? Barring even the content of your posts, that's... pretty ridiculous. If your criticism concerns the show as a whole (or, well, the parts of it you have seen), why don't you make a discussion thread about that? Call it "My opinion about the flaws of the show in the parts of the show I have seen", or something. Or, alternatively, why don't you try to apply your posts and rants to 5.08, if you have seen "scenes" from it? The hypocrisy, that's astounding.

...Personally, I just wanted to say that I loved the episode. Seriously, though - Where did that come from? I thought that the point of the R&R threads was that all this toxicity would be gathered in one place and not contaminate the rest of the board? What's the purpose of them if other threads get toxic anyway?

This is not the discussion thread, but I'll indulge you. Sure. There were a lot of small great moments as opposed to one giant one, though, so that's a bit apples-to-oranges. Also, 'just asking...' is a very common trolling tactic, so I'd avoid that if you don't want to be called out as a troll!

A 10. Bonus for - all the father-daughter stuff in the episode (Barristan/Dany (adopted), Littlefinger/Sansa (adopted, also creepy), Stannis/Shireen, Oberyn/Sand Snakes, Jaime/Myrcella) - Jaime going "Tarth" with a dreamy face - both fights - Margaery getting exhausted by Tommen's childishness - Mace bumbling about - creepy Lancel - all the history exposition - Jon with Melisandre. Heh.

I keep repeating, the distribution is very skewed, so removing 5% on each tail is the wrong trick to use. Try the median instead.

This is hilarious, and you're a great troll. :D

A 10. Bonus for Sansa's death glare at Roose, everything to do with Littlefinger, Tyrion with the prostitute (and that guy's beard!) and the ridiculous High Septon scene.

I definitely prefer the show one. She feels like an actual human being, not a caricature. I love how skewed the distribution of the scores is.

The distribution is pretty skewed, though. Have you tried calculating the median instead?

A strong 9/10. Adored all the Sam in the episode. And, of course, Tyrion and Varys, Dany doing a Stannis, Sansa and Littlefinger, Brienne and Cersei being themselves. And the Water Gardens are beautiful.

Beats me. I don't even use that much emoji. Try going to getemoji and see what you see there?

I followed Good Guy Garlan's description of how s/he got their rose. Essentially, go to getemoji.com, copy the emoji and paste into your 'display name'. I'm currently experimenting. e: also, my kitten got catnapped while suntanning in my garden a week ago, so whenever I'm not desperately walking around the neighbourhood calling for him, I'm in mourning. That's outside of the scope of the discussion, though. Please don't laugh.

I'll be also interested to see what the show does, but we're not supposed to discuss it here. Maybe the mods will create a show-spoiler book discussion subforum after this season.

I think that's because the characters and stories are basically faithful - i.e. when you compare them at the end of all things, they will be, within an epsilon margin, similar. Show Jaime will straggle for some seasons more, but I'm pretty sure that eventually, he'll make his choice. Similarly, I think that Balon will eventually die. Although Ellaria will probably take on the character of Arianne and there will be no Aegon, Dorne will have a similar position in the game in the show as in the books, i.e. will support a non-Daenerys, non-Cersei, non-Tyrell pretender. And so on and so forth. Well, not to be a smartass, but that's your problem. e: Wait, that still did sound smart-assy. I meant more something like, "I'm sure you are, to me they are clear, but I'm not interested in discussing this further, especially since it's probably been rehashed a hundred times already."

I'm not sure. I think that Cersei is in more or less the same 'I'd like to stay, but we're too different now' place. She chose to be with Jaime as recently as 410, remember? And then, their differences showed up again. But then, the relationship had never struck me as particularly toxic. Just one that ran its way, without especially putting blame on either side. I think that you've let yourself be suggested too much by the books, maybe. The show is different.

That's why I don't think he'll 'call her up and tell her he's breaking with her'. More like 'accept the inevitable, and not bother anymore' - which means that he'll be free to choose a new, positive direction for his life. How's that meaningless?

See, that's your problem. You're continuing to treat the books as a point of reference, and checking the show for compliance. Book!Jaime, sure, was moving from Cersei at that point already. Show!Jaime, however, staggered a bit more - he wanted things to be the way they used to be, which is an equally valid reaction. He'll change his mind when the showrunners decide that it's time for him to change his mind. They'll supply the motivation and the reaction then. Your complaint is, basically, on the level of 'why hasn't the show killed Balon already'? Wait and see.

Well, that's what I think this chapter has achieved. She no longer maintains the strict dichotomy. I mean, there's really only one place where she sees him as Littlefinger - it's the one where he's explicitly pimping her out to Harry. Otherwise: Not much of a physical or mental aversion here. And then, her reaction to the cake ("a splendid subtlety," lol - we all know how "subtle" it is): She seems pretty happy about it, doesn't she? Of course, sometimes a cake is just a cake. The way I see it, what happened is that Littlefinger toned himself down slightly between the chapters and gave her some space, and she responded by shortening the mental distance between them. Now, the outcome of how much she has shortened it probably really depends on the next chapters; she's still in transition. She really scorns Harry and the inexperienced boys-'knights of summer', though. If I were a guessing poster, I'd guess that this chapter would represent a sort of a pivot, and that we'd see her get a bit more explicit in the next ones. But hey, that's for TWOW.

To be honest, I think she's already falling for him a bit. She's practically the only person in the books who calls him 'Petyr'. And the 'Petyr':'Littlefinger' ratio in the new chapter is very high. To be even more honest, I think he's actually falling for her, too. Hence it feels to me like the people who continuously repeat that 'he's just playing her' are in denial that this is what's happening. I have no idea why this bothers people so much, though. The closer they are, the more he opens to her, the easier it will be for her to destroy him.

He's not on the show. Why? He returned, he wanted things to be the same. I think something will happen this season to convince him that his relationship with Cersei is fully dead, and which woman he loves.

Yeah, OK. I can appreciate your position, and thank you for explaining it! I still respectfully disagree - I don't deny that the attraction existed, mind you, I just think that ultimately, it has already served its narrative purpose (brought Sandor to a happy place, took Sansa through a pretty dark time). But I certainly can appreciate your position. And hey, can happen, why not. Shipping San/Pow means that, if, at the end of all things, Sansa is given and makes this particular choice, it's OK, too. I mostly wrote that I 'laugh' at SanSans because those I did find to be the loudest were those with this very instant instinctive aversion towards Littlefinger, especially if the possibility of her working with him and liking him (as opposed to "being played by him" and... uh, "being played by him") is mentioned. "But he killed her father!" Well, duh, but why are you judging Sansa for this? She doesn't know! "Well then, someone and/or the narrative should remind her!" Welp. Anything not to put her in that situation. It's as if those people suffer from the black/white madonna/whore complex, and if Sansa gets even a bit dirty or wrong, strays from the path they see as correct, they won't be able to stand it. And, I mean, by now I think we all know that the only people who survive in this series are those who are willing to go dirty and to compromise black-and-white morals. So, there's that, for all that it matters.