Survivor92

Yeah. It was weird how Brienne tried once to convince Blackfish and then was all like, "oh let's send a raven to Sansa telling her what we failed". Plus a few episodes ago Sansa said they couldn't send a raven to Riverrun because Ramsay might intercept it so she needed Brienne, but apparently now the raven-network is working fine again?

I think you're misunderstanding the argument I was trying to make. I actually gave this episode a 1. While I loved the Walk of Shame and most of the actors (the actor for Stannis is amazing, which is why it hurts even more that he's nothing like bookStannis), this episode was imho so illogical, inconsistent and downright insulting to the intelligence of the viewers that I cannot bring myself to give it a higher score. All the reasons why can basically be found in the 'rant and rave' thread. It was mostly the terrible FTW scene with a lot of wasted build-up and no aftermath that did it for me, plus the waste of screentime that is Dorne and the ruined character that is Stannis.

It's funny to read all the butthurt reponses that it's "immature/stupid/etc." to give this episode a rating of 1, but everyone is perfectly fine with giving it a 9 or a 10. If a 9 or a 10 is an acceptable score if you loved the episode, then so are 1 and 2 acceptable scores if you didn't like it. If you prefer less extreme ratings then give it a 7 or a 4. That's the whole point of a 1 to 10 rating system.

How is a 9/10 a sane reaction and a 1 is not? It also depends on the value you assign to each number. For some people, a 6 is "mediocre/below average", while for other people that would be a 4. Personally I gave this episode a 1 even though I greatly respect the actors and love most of the costumes, make-up, soundtracks etc. But I want to give off a signal that I'm not okay with the Shireen scene. Not because I can't stand the fact that she dies but because of the context. D&D keep going for cheap shock factors instead of logic and consistency. First we had the Sansa rape and now this. Both events make no sense given their respective character arcs, D&D's promises and logical expectations. By now the show feels like a horror movie with cheap jump scares instead of the promising ASOIAF adaptation that I saw in season 1-3.

Stannis didn't murder his own brother. From the books, it can be argued that Stannis didn't realize he killed Renly and that it was Melisandre who killed Renly behind Stannis' back. See this post: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/94724-stanniss-decision-to-have-renly-killed-long-post/?p=4824562 Plus even if he had done so, it was in self-defence. Renly would've killed Stannis (he told his men not to damage Stannis' body too much) the very next day. I don't believe there's such a thing as "evil" in the books (well, apart from Ramsay perhaps) and Stannis is definitely not evil. He's morally grey, like pretty much every character. It took him an entire book to make up his mind about Edric Storm and even then we don't know his final decision (Davos interrupts him before that). Is Stannis capable of sacrificing one person, even a child, for the realm? Yes. Is he capable of sacrificing his daughter and only heir to get better weather after G.I. Ramsay burned down his tents and horses? That seems very illogical and unlikely. I expect that in the books Shireen will either be sacrificed by Melisandre or Stannis will do it because he has no other choice and Shireen will die anyway (so they're in a truly desperate situation). You could argue that the situatoin was desparate in the shows but the build-up/tension was terrible.

This. I can see it happening in the books, maybe near the end of TWoW. But Stannis would never sacrifice Shireen just to get better weather. Most likely she'll die either way, so it's only a choice between burning her now and saving everyone, or doing nothing and then she gets killed anyway. Maybe the WW are about to descend down on them or they are trapped and ambushed somewhere. In the show, we get this pathetic excuse that Ramsay burned a few tents and now suddenly Shireen has to die. There's no build-up, no logical explanation, it's just pure shock factor. I enjoyed some parts of this episode, the whole scene with Drogon was cool, but I'm giving it a 1 just for the Shireen scene. The show has now really degraded to cheap shock factors and "everyone could die", which is not at all what GRRM intended with his books.