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He'll likely just ignore it. Roose is a lot of things, most of them bad. But he already knows where Jon Snow is, or he should. If he wanted to be rid of him, he could've done it already.

It only needs to happen at some point before the conclusion of the R+L=J subplot. I'm sure we're going to get more backstory behind it in the upcoming weeks.

They didn't have the men to deploy a phalanx, anyway (a proper phalanx generally being 8 men deep, as wide as the number of men will allow, with the reach of the spears allowing the first four ranks of men to fight behind the interlocked shields up front) . If we're assuming accuracy here, they were dead meat, because phalanx tactics require a large number of men. They were limited to small unit tactics with a weapon poorly suited to it.

In the circumstances they found themselves, they'd probably lose as often as they won. Historically, the way to beat an army so armed was to break up the formation, attack from multiple angles and isolate individual soldiers or small groups of soldiers. This is why the phalanx style of warfare fell out of favor. I don't know if the show was aiming for historical accuracy in that depiction, but a small unit of spear infantry, in close quarters, outnumbered and surrounded was in serious trouble.

Sadly, its pretty obvious what's coming. Brienne is going to kill Stannis, which obviously, is rather bad for Stannis, but its also going to completely blow up LF's plans to use Stannis to liberate and install Sansa there. Poor Sansa may end up stuck with Ramsay for a while.

I don't know if they were aiming for a realistic portrayal of that type of combat, but yeah, that's true. Spears and shield walls work great in fixed formation on a battlefield. They suck royally when the opponent can attack from multiple angles, in close quarters and especially when the spear man can be isolated and attacked individually.

It seems very likely. Its subtle if you don't know what's coming and something like this will easily be forgotten by a lot non-readers if you wait until next year (and no doubt, a good many of them didn't pick up on it at all).

I must disagree strongly.

They're going to replace Barristan with Daario....

8/10. Overall, it was a very good episode that put a lot of pieces in place for what I expect later in the year. That said, I do absolutely loathe that ending, I have to admit.

Good episode, right up until they decided to have a bunch of faceless nobodys cut down Ser Barristan. Booooooo!!!!