Aripyanfar

Oh god, you just reminded me that since this is the last episode there is (DUH) no more Game of Thrones for a year. Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Anything that wasn't amazing would feel like a letdown after the RW. The RW was such an extraordinary peak climax, that any major "EVENT" coming straight afterwards would still feel like it misfired. I think it was wise for them not to try and compete with the RW by following up straightaway with something like

Solid 9 Whilst there was no spectacular cliffhanger as in the past two season's endings, It wrapped up the aftermath of the Red Wedding, and set out the stage for season 4 very well indeed. I was pleased with the scenes, especially pleased indeed with a lot of them. The Tywin/Tyrion talk was a gut wrenching further explication of both characters. I don't remember reaching this far into Tywin's head before. Tyrion/Sansa/Shae was also gut wrenching because it seems to foreshadow that this relationship triangle cannot end well. Shae/Varys I was especially hooked into because it gave me further insight into Varys' motivations, and also pushed the "not ending well for Shae" feeling. I feel very sorry for all three of them, and really sad that Tyrion seems not able to be a safe place for Sansa, after all. It was great that after all the separations, characters are coming back together, or crossing paths. Loved the Sam/Bran scenes, the Gilly/Maestor scene, and Jon making it back to Pip and Sam. God, I really felt the Jon/Ygritte scene. Jon's grimacing mouth as he begs for Ygritte's understanding, and for his life. Ygritte's watering eyes and trembling lip as she listens and then decides to still go ahead and kill him. And Joffrey at the council! Can't believe one of the Unsullied at TwoP called that Joff would server Sansa her brother's head at his wedding. (If he could.) that was really tense, and a further setup for Brienne grimace was powerfully expressive of her and Jaime's ambivalent position in her brief scene. Jaime's and Cercei's brief reuniting was nail-biting. Jaime looked briefly hopeful, but Cercei is just shocked and biting back horror, and he relapses into some sort of resigned despair. reminds me of Cercei/Tyrion, god that was good. The consolation of children for an unhappy wife... "not even Joffrey himself can take that away from me". "They're the only reason I didn't [kill myself]". Unlike others I really liked the Daenerys endscene, the last imagery and music was like something out of Baraka.

cnote: Loras said "fringed sleeve", not "French sleeve". DolorousKim: "Arya the master archer" came from episode one, season one. She was a tomboy, and her first, best, "boyskill" was the bow and arrows, as she left her sucky embroidery and went and outshot Bran who kept missing the whole target. Only later did Ned get Arya sword lessons as Kinglanding closed in. In Britain for centuries Archery was the one martial art consistently taught to Ladies, for hunting, and for defending castle walls as last resort troops. Archers were fantastically effective in wartime, but the bow was more "Common" than a sword. A lord who was better with a Bow, and used it in battle, rather than a sword, was often looked down on.

Sansa's lower lip wobbling when Margaery held out all her dreams coming true to her, along with the prospect of a sister who WANTS to be her sister, was so emotional. Last season taught Sansa that Dream Princes can hide monsters, and she was getting pretty good at lying to save her life, and saying one thing but meaning another. Now 14 year old Sansa* is falling for the Too Good To Be True thing AGAIN. I'm worried for her. We already know that Loras is gay, (I'm not getting any bi-sexual vibe) and is so not interested in Sansa that he couldn't even be bothered with a polite evasion about remembering giving her his "Favour", that red rose. On the bright side, I don't think Sansa's *sexual* hormones have hit her yet, and she's really not ready for a marriage *bed*... for all she is so marriage crazy. I loathed Sansa in Season 1, and later realised what great actors were playing Sansa and Joffrey, for me to unthinkingly loathe them like that. Sansa has grown up a bit, but not much, but I LIKE that we still have what is essentially an innocent, very naive character, who has a very child-like helplessness in not accruing almost any useful survival skills in a dangerous world. I just worry that she isn't open-eyed enough to accurately judge people enough to know who she should really rely on. I don't think that Margaery would be mean or cruel to Sansa as long as Sansa is helpful in Margaery's goal to be THE Queen. I just don't believe that Margaery is really as attracted to Sansa as a sister/friend as she is pretending so hard to be. I think Margaery in her heart just couldn't love Sansa when Sansa is so obviously out of her depth in comparison to herself. Sansa is at best, a pet rabbit to Margaery. The only gripe I have about Season 3 so far is that for me, the Arya scenes aren't long enough. However, this is very much an ensemble show, and Arya got more than her fair share of great scenes last season. *Season 1, Episode 1, Cercei remarked that the 13 year old Sansa was very tall for her age

Some things ping differently on different people's bodies. Even though I've read a lot of slasher/thriller/horror/vore books I was quite disturbed by seeing the "minor" finger-nail removal and foot-screwing done to Theon. The finger-nail made me cringe more than the foot crushing.

A Song of ICE and FIRE? Oh yeah, I'd be all kinds of surprised if the dragons weren't used to beat the White Walkers, assuming that twisty tragedian GRRM has the White Walkers beaten. But I presume the WW army is going to be so powerful it's going to take a joint effort to beat them back into sleep, or extinction for all time. Being key doesn't necessarily mean you do the largest part of a job yourself. It might take dragons AND all the armies left in the South, AND all the magicians including Worg people. Making the WW extinct would be ideal, so maybe the dragons do the bulk of WW slaying, and Bran is key to their final death beyond sleep? Who hasn't ever speculated by now that Daenarys might hook up with someone in the West, militarily and/or romantically, by the last season? My dream happy ending puts Daenerys and John Snow on the Iron Throne together, with Robb in the North. Although I like Arya even better than John, so Arya and Daenerys! But then there are three dragons, so that'd be awesome, if Arya and John got to be dragon riders. And of course I want Bran and Tyrion on the Little Council. Oh happy world. I'm scared I'm not going to get it. T.T

Jojen saying Bran is the most important thing: that made me think that Bran would turn out to be key in saving the world from the White Walkers. No matter how important who the ruler on the Iron Throne is, the White Walkers are far far far more important than that. I was really really pleased with Jojen and Meera. Jojen looked all fey and spooky, very suitable for someone Bran met first in a magical dream. Meera was pretty and kick-arse. I loved* her riposte about "some men are worth protecting", given Osha's relationship with Bran. Tyrion seemed very much defeated and flat compared to his usual self, but no wonder, given what he's been through. I'm glad he's human and not a caricature. John's and Mance's scene was another reminder that it's the Walkers that matter, and that all the dire squabbling in the South is ruinously inconsequential and horrifically ironic. Poor Sam, I thought someone was going to say "We need him with us so we can eat him."! I loved loved loved Cat's scene, where she admitted she was terribly wrong to hate John just for existing, but she just couldn't overcome her emotional jealousy with rationality. The Brotherhood Without Banners guys seemed supernatural in their tracking and weapons abilities. Incredibly impressive. I was disappointed Arya couldn't avoid getting her sword smacked out of her hand instantaneously, though. Even if it's realistic, muscle-wise, I wish she'd been able to water-dance a little to keep her sword a little longer. When she picked up her sword, I actually expected her to go for him again. The whole Brotherhood Without Banners thing made me want to see a lot more of them. I'm really worried about the Hound showing up and outing Arya. Oh! And Margery Tyrell REALLY stepped up her game as a player. On hearing that Joffrey is a monster, she delicately works her way round to insinuating to Joff that she could be a companion monster, thrilled and energized by gore and death. It was masterful manipulation, so subtly but quickly worked up to. Theon's torture was nasty, and I found it horribly abrupt. Ok, so he's pissed off all the Greyjoys and all their people. Why don't they stick a sword in him and bedone with the Greatly Despised Disappointment? I thought Theon was way overdoing the pain of being woken up with cold water, until I remembered what being in a cold, stone place is really like, and what being cold to the bone is really like. Adding ice-cold water on top of that would very likely send you into Shock. Given the poor actors being blizzarded on in Iceland, I wouldn't be surprised if poor Alfie Allen really was good and freezing by the time they threw a bucket of ice water on him. His muscular spasms were very convincing as they went on and on. Jaime and Brienne got the best scene. I was so thrilled with the fight on the bridge I was left begging by Bolton (Roose Bolton's son? bastard? other?) and his men cutting it short. What an episode cliffhanger! ARGHH.* *The highlighted stuff here is copypasta from a post I made in an Off-Topic forum dedicated to MMORPGs.

The Wildfire explosion was COMPLETELY spectacular... but afterwards, with the men screaming from over the water, it was gutwrenching listening. Tyrion's rallying speech was awesome. The battle... and yet, even with all the battle scenes, somehow I got caught up with the scenes in the women's quarter more. My brain kind of got that they'd retreated to a tower room for safety and were tensely awaiting the outcome, but as the episode unfolded my stomach finally got the crawling horror of their situation. A Stannis win, no matter how I wanted Joffrey to be toppled, meant almost certain gang rape for all the women. Scarred for life, possibly physically disfigured, possibly a lingering slow death from rape or injury. So they were awaiting the outcome of the battle, to know when to commit mass suicide, by their own hand or by Ilyn Payne's. Or not. What a horrific wait.