Mikkel

Rhaegar the Hollow-Chested... if you know what I mean...

This is the only part that surprised me, I mean someone (other than redshirts) had to die but I would've thought Viserion might be enough. On the other hand they have been shedding non-essentials a lot lately (or shredding, in Thoros' case, heh!).

Well, there's a reason neither Kit Harington or Emilia Clarke has managed much of a career outside GoT despite it's phenomenal popularity, and it's not just a scheduling issue. I suppose we'll see what happens when GoT finally wraps, but outside of coasting on their fame from this for a bit, I don't foresee either of them having a stellar career. I'm sure they're lovely people though.

Tormund's Member, obviously. More than enough for a dozen campfires.

Well that explains it. I am not sure I want to delve too deeply into what a teenage boy with access to a few thousand years' worth of re-livable porn is doing, but all of a sudden his complete disappearance from the story and apparent apathy to everything around him makes sense.

Ain't that the truth...

Humm, but in my opinion Jon didn't put aside what matters to him - being king was not something he did for himself. By bending the knee to Dany, he just runs the risk of at least some Northern lords rebelling against their new Targaryen overlord and refusing to join the fight - the fight Dany just committed to.

I will be supremely disappointed if they just take it in their stride! But then I thought Jon bending the figurative knee was supremely stupid in the first place (some kind of guilt trip over the dragon I guess).

...is the fact that she would have no reason to do so whatsoever I completely agree. A lot of people these days are capable only of two states though: hate it or love it. It's a Facebook-style binary choice: You like it, in which case you MUST (apparently) rate it a 10, or you don't.

Great post, couldn't agree more.

Best thing in this episode was this: Jaime: Lord Rickon.. Billy Bones. Dick-on Bronn: *snort*

asking the real questions

Now where did I say anything like that? That's right, I didn't. What I think she should do was maybe tone down on the entitled demands a wee bit and try to get the support of some lords/ladies who actually want to serve her, rather than use her as a convenient vehicle for revenge. Yes, as you point out she does have a "right" to feel entitled, and maybe she even has the means to follow through on it, but you know what that makes her? A tyrant and an oppressor, not a good Queen and definitely not a good person. I don't even have a problem with her if that's what she wants to be, because then at least she would be a proper villain.

It matters if we're discussing whether her claim will get people to support her - and I'm saying that in this instance, they didn't really care about her claim at all. If people are joining your cause for nothing but selfish reasons, then great they're joining you, but maybe one should have a moment of introspection as well. Of course Dany "If I look back I am lost" Targaryen is not really one for introspection.

Agreed. Daenerys has a claim. It's a claim she will have to enforce with, well, force which makes it functionally the same as an invasion, which incidentally is what the Targaryens did in the first place: Landing at Dragonstone, having three dragons etc, the similarities are striking and obviously intentional both in-story and out. "Having a claim" really doesn't mean all that much unless you can get a lot of people to agree that it is a good, valid claim, however - and that's where Dany's falls apart, since her father broke faith with a number of his lords and hence was overthrown. But this, too, does not matter because in any case Dany would have had to take the throne by force. None of the Westerosi really seem to support her for her claim, anyway, the Dornish and the Tyrells were in it for revenge (but I guess they're both out now), Yara and Theon for survival (and they're pretty much a non-entity at the moment, too) and, well, the Northeners under Jon may end up supporting her because they have bigger fish to fry, aka the survival of mankind, but without that I'm not sure they would care too much about her family's claim, either.