Forlong the Fat

The one thing in the episode that had a logical, not to mention hopeful, explanation, and you’re complaining? i through it was the best thing in the episode by far. Sandor came far enough to save Arya from a path of misery, and she came far enough to let him.

The only way they could make the Ramsay Sansa material more distasteful would be to have her run around seducing people like the Hound as if she didn’t experience any sexual trauma.

I suspect that he’s going back to save her but will find her doing something so terrible he has to kill her. He’s conflicted but he’s grown enough to not go along with her killing a bunch of innocent people.

I thought he was trying to stab it in the mouth.

Well you just entered into a discussion of a different objection many people had to the scene to restate yours. Apparently you think it isn't rehashing so long as you have the last word. That's not what the word means, but I guess you're entitled to any feelings you want on what words mean, just as you are entitled to any feelings you want to have about whether it's in character for young men and women to have sex.

Have you ever noticed that when someone says they don't want to rehash something they inevitably rehash it? I'm not going to rehash why this makes no sense, but . . .

It’s interesting as a cultural matter to ask why one would be bothered by her having sex even if it was contextually inappropriate, given all the things Arya has done as an underage girl. We will watch a young girl kill people, cut off their faces, use them to kill more people, then feed those people to someone else and kill them, but having nice consensual sex is a bridge too far? ”We train young men to drop fire on people but their commanders won’t allow them to write fuck on their airplanes because it’s obscene.”

I didn’t see any pointless stares from Littlefinger. Where did those happen in the episode? And I don’t agree that the book is the ultimate arbiter of what should happen in the show. But I don’t think that, book or show, its that hard to imagine that being subjected to the knowledge and responsibility of the 3ER would place one outside the realm of ordinary human emotion.

I don’t agree on a few levels. First, the point of Bran’s arc is that he has developed into something that is not amenable to nice family time. That’s tragic but it’s deliberately so. And generally the idea of good tv writing is to focus on unexpected or interesting conversations. The Starks getting together and affirming their love for each other (which has already been established) is simply not that important.

As I said, I don’t think this element of the plot has been well explained in the show. However, if you think referencing a fact in a show multiple times is not sufficient to establish the fact, I’m not sure what to tell you. As you say, it has been said multiple times that the Dothraki are feared “savages,” including at some length by Randyll Tarly, the person for whom the motivation is most important. And it is fairly reasonable, for purposes of simplifying things for a show, to essentially have the Tarlys represent the houses that would be involved in the books. Now with Tarly dead, it’s not clear who Cersei is even relying on. Is it just Euron, Qyburn and now Strickland? That seems . . .strange.

That has nothing to do with what he did when Robert died. He discovered that Joffrey was not Robert’s son and he was following Robert’s will that said he was to act as regent. He was arrested and executed based on known lies. And you’re exaggerating when you say that most of what was done in the rebellion was based on lies. It was not true that Lyanna was unwillingly kidnapped. She was taken against the wishes of her family and Robert, who she was betrothed to. Aerys was a madman who brutally murdered Ned’s father and brother, among other issues that spurred the rebellion, all of which have not been fully detailed in the books or show.

What you said in bold is true but people are also overlooking that, as a matter of justice, everything Ned did was based on the truth and laws, and everything Joffrey did was based on lies orchestrated by his mother, Littlefinger, and others (though it's not clear what Joffrey knew of the truth). Ned's execution was unjust because it was based on lies by people trying to cover up other lies. If the charges against Ned were truthful, execution would have been entirely justified albeit, as you point out, not strategically wise.

While I agree that Cersei's base of power is not adequately explained, you are jumping over something pretty major here. The Dothraki have been feared "savages" in Westeros for a very long time. Robert referenced this all the way back in season one. Ned acknowledged them as a threat but thought they would never cross the sea. Randyll Tarly's aversion to Dothraki (and all "savages" for that matter) was explained and didn't come from nowhere.

Nothing she has said or done would suggest that she wants to or would be anything but an absolute ruler. The major goal of her life has been to return to Westeros and reclaim the throne.

That's certainly not true from Dany's point of view. They swore allegiance to the Targeryans before the rebellion.