Ran

We went with the heraldic and George didn't say otherwise. It was our habit to let him know whenever we had new shields up, and he would either comment with approvals and niggles, or he just wouldn't say much of anything (either because he was busy or had nothing to add), so... we don't know what he actually intended, per se, but if he looked at it and chose not to say anything, I guess it's the heraldic. But that's a big "if".

Yeah, that was purely direct refunds through CDPR itself that they offered to people who could not get the refunds from other sources.

Bit of a difference from "stylized dragon/wolf" to "completely different type of animal", though. There's no GoT artwork where a dragon doesn't look like some sort of dragon, or a wolf like some sort of wolf. The seahorse shown in the photo does not look at all like the actual animal species, because it's intended to be a mythical, heraldic seahorse -- half horse, half fish -- and not the actual animal GRRM intended.

Doh! George intended it to be an actual seahorse, not the fantastical one. Well, another "the show is the show" thing.

It's also repeated in the press release that Variety, et al. put out, so it's unclear at this time whether it reflects George revealing that detail for the book character or whether it's just part of what the show has done and he was echoing it. It'd be something to ask him about.

If it is not justified in the preservation of the life of someone being attacked with a deadly weapon, then what is the scenario where it is in fact justified?

I don't think so. We asked the same if I remember rightly, and George didn't change it. He wanted to add more family names, I think. I still don't know if he has heraldry notes for all the new families he's introduced over the course of the novels, as he had way back when he first sent them to us. Mean to ask when the opportunity presents itself.

If it wasn't clear from the body cam, this footage makes it clear that the officer even attempts to grab hold of the victim after she charges the first girl, despite her knife. And then he doesn't fire because he's concerned the girl on the ground might get up and be in the line of sight. It's a horrible, tragic situation, but again, that he fired at her is justified to me. Four shots was excessive, but that's the stupid ass training.

Ditto. It's a fine character study that uses a ridiculous situation to heighten the tension.

@Sharpes Good post, and questions.

Ah-ha! I knew I recognized the shots of the giant from something I'd read. Of course it's Ballard's famous "The Drowned Giant". Been years and years since I've read it. Very cool to see the Ellison story "Life Hutch" being the one with Michael B. Jordan. Another one I haven't read in years, but I've a collection with it somewhere. The Mashable sorry hints at a third season story, a violent one in which a cybernetic bear bites off someone's head. Doesn't ring any bells.

The shooting happened outside of the range of police-issued tasers, which is like 10 feet; this looks like it was maybe 15 feet, give or take. If the officer waited to get in range to use the taser, the victim would have made at least one full stab at the face/throat of their target, instead the interrupted attack. In countries with neither firearms nor tasers, the police would... I don't know what they would do. Either physically intervene, meaning more time for the target to be attacked, or wait for back up and attempt to de-escalate, with more time for the target to be attacked. Given the limitations of tasers and given the fact that the first shot interrupted what looked like a full-on attempt to slash or stab the face/neck of the target, I'll be honest, this is one of the times a police shooting seems, sadly, justified (though I think four shots was at least two too many, on the balance, when weighing the risk both to the victim and the target). Trying to stab someone in the face or neck with a deadly weapon is the kind of thing I would want police to prevent, and the only tool the police officer had that could prevent that was their pistol because of the situation.

Re: Salladhor Saan on the show, The idea that the writers came up with (per Bryan Cogman) was that he was a Summer Islander by birth who had made Lys his home. This is why his accent, and that of Xaro Xhoan Daxos on the show (who was explicitly said to have had a Summer Isles origin on the show), were so similar. So there was an attempt at an explanation which worked all right (other than the fact that they never bothered making it explicit) given that nothing turned on Salladhor Saan being a native Lyseni or of Valyrian descent.

Fixed!

The castle doctrine tends to apply most in your home proper, not just on your property. I Googled and came across this fairly straightforward explanation of the rules in Ohio: Or just blind dumb luck (or bad luck). Knives are the second most commonly used weapons in murders after firearms in the U.S., and the most common used weapon in most other countries that have sane attitudes towards guns, for a reason. A quick Google shows any number of cases of people dying from stab wounds, including those inflicted by teenagers on other teenagers, and sometimes from single stab wounds (including one poor Welsh lad who was stabbed in the stomach and died overnight at the hospital.) It's training, near as I can tell. American police are taught to fire multiple times and at center mass to try and insure that their target is downed out of a belief that one or even two bullets are often not sufficient to stop people immediately. It's horrible doctrine. I ended up watching a video randomly some months ago in which a Brazilian police officer -- and Brazil is considered the wild, wild west by many because of the breadth of violent crime -- dealing with a disturbed man with a knife, where he backpedalled away from him as the guy gave chase... and then calmly shot him once in the leg rather than unloading multiple bullets at center mass. In the US, the latter would have been expected and the person would almost certainly have died. Maybe he died from the gun shot to the leg, to be sure -- major artery in the thigh and all -- but it seemed to me a much saner and proportionate response. I watched the video showing the alleged "Blue Lives Matter" chant, and I think it's slightly misunderstood. It's pretty clear that the woman recording it is not paying attention and has no idea what was said. It seems to me that the man with the camera was the one who said it because he spotted a "Blue Lives Matter" flag or banner of some kind on one of the squad cars and harangued police about it. I think that's obviously inappropriate for police officers to decorate their vehicles with political messaging of their choosing, but it's not quite the same thing as claiming they were standing around chanting "Blue Lives Matter" in response to people being angry and upset at the shooting of someone.