Count Balerion

I've mainly watched his review videos. So far I've only watched a couple of his serious ones: the one about Jon Snow's rigged election and one of the WOW ones, plus a serious Q&A where he among other things argued that magic doesn't exist (which I'm not so sure of). I plan to watch more of the serious stuff between seasons, as a way of avoiding withdrawal symptoms. I'm inclined to be on the side of the humans, but that could be because I am one, and so are the POV characters. If there were COTW POV, it might look a bit different.

hahahaha i saw that...and since i believe that it will be jaime who does her in the end... i loved it as jaime said...where are our allies sailing in magical ships Chad Summerchild also pointed this out; but then the Night King pointed out he nwas actually standing on the Twins; which didn't phase Chad at all, since Jaime and Cersei are ... twins! "This show is so subtle!" *wonders if he should link to Preston Jacobs video again, or if twice in the same post (in the poll thread) is enough*

I guess this one will get a 5. I might have gone with a decent 6 (or even 7, with the Hooray-it's-back! point added), but for the Frey massacre. Apart from making Arya a ittle *too* evil (I suppose she might end up being just as evil in the books, if they ever get written), has certain implausibilities. As in, how did she pretend to be Frey for two weeks?(*) She certainly learnt her stuff awfully fast after she stopped training. North was better than I expected, with the not entirely motivated Jon-Sansa conflict. Jon ordering all the women and girls to fight seems a stretch for Westerosi culture, even with the WW threat, and do I remember correctly that hhe said "50%"? Would he really have talked like that? Sansa has a point about the castles and gets to put down Baelish. I'm not sure the showrunners are sure what they're doing with Sansa, although she seems pretty rational in this episode. Why is Jaime even still with Cersei? Well-acted, though. Euron's ships are pretty impressive considering how quickly he dashed them together last season. The Night's King(*) is right, though, that it was really stupid to just ignore Dragonstone. Blackwater and all that. Sam and Hound: both rather too long, I think. The Hound did get the nice scene atoning for robbing those people earlier, plus the flames thing. Watching Daenerys come back to Dragonstone can't not be enjoyable. It doesn't look terribly inviting. At least Meereen had plants. On second thoughts, maybe I should have gone with 6. Too late now. (*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhSj4dOTM9Q

I'm sorry; when I filled out the survey I was serious until it came to the information about me, then I started saying weird things like that I was South Canadian. If you want to delete it, I could take the survey over and this time not get "clever". My apologies!

8.5. Most of my problems pertain not to this specific episode, but to the season (or the last two seasons) as a whole. For example, the scene where the North remembered was enjoyable in itself, even though it apparently took them a long time to do so; for the purpose of commenting on this episode, I would only observe that, apart from little Lyanna, it was hard to tell whether the lords were motivated by conviction or expediency. As far as spectacle is concerned, it was an excellent episode. Two or three images in particular stand out: the sept burning; mad Cersei seated upon the Iron Throne (one did wonder who these people cheering were; sycophants, I suppose); Daenerys with her fleet waving the Targaryen banner. There were also several nice intimate moments, like Sansa and Jon (although Sansa, in apologizing, didn't really say *why* she didn't tell Jon about the Vale), or Daenerys and Tyrion. Not to mention R&L, etc. A couple of issues with the episode: mainly, I think they may have tried to cram too much into one spisode, which might have been better spread out; if you blinked you might miss a major development. The other being that for the first several minutes, before the flurry of activity, there was quite a bit of waiting around. Also, it contained the Sand Snakes, although we did get that meta moment when QOT told them to shut the blazes up. Yes, yes, Seven save my soul, yes.

7.5-ish, because of certain issues with the North storyline (bear with me; I'll get to what I liked shortly): 1. As the thread title put it: "Forgetful North". I suppose the showrunners may have wanted to create suspense and thought giving the Starks too much Northern support would make their victory too easy; but they bent over much too far in the other direction. This has been a problem over the last two seasons. "Raving psychopath? Big deal." 2. Jon seemed a tad ineffectual as a leader, although I daresay he indirectly made the victory possible by befriending the Wildings before he died. 3. The Vale. I have no inherent problem with that (if not for point #1), and don't even mind that it was predictable; and at least it looked cool (not as cool as "STANNIS!!!", but still cool). My concern is with the implication that Sansa was wrong when she chewed out LF earlier, and may even end up begging for forgiveness, when in fact she was quite right: handing her over to Ramsay really was either stupid or hostile. 4.The direwolves are kind of off and on, no? Now what I liked: Davos and Tormond (Davos in particular is good in pretty much every scene he's in); the direwolf flag being raised; Sansa's revenge was horribly satisfying; Wun Wun rules; poor Rickon. I also liked that the triumph was muuted; a realistic touch, that. Now in Meereen, on the other hand, I liked almost everything. Especially perhaps the way the cocksure slavers were put in their place, and the Daenerys-Yara meeting. Even Tyrion's dialogue was decent.

5/6, but will go with 6 b/c there wasn't anything outrageous that I recall. Just a lot of filler. The narrative is rather choppy in this show, and this was one of the choppier episodes. Arya's storyline finally moves. I like stage-Cersei. Chase scenes, though, are the hoariest of action action-show cliches (I bet the stegosauri had them in *their* action shows), and several minutes could have been shaved off of this one. Not the best storyline in the show or the books. It did have a nice conclusion, and we can look forward to Arya perhaps meeting Sansa again. Some potentially interesting twists in Hound/BWB and KL. What I wonder is why Margaery would want the Faith to try Loras; perhaps he'll fake repentance and be let go. Riverrun siege: OK, a little meuh, although Jaime seems a bit more interesting here than in KL or in God-help-us (alias Dorne). Disappointing to lose the Blackfish. My horrible fear is that the Sansa storyline is being arranged so that LF will be a hero. (I thought he was a villain? Chaos ladders and all that?) Meereen: Erk. Tyrion is getting to be kind of annoying, and Essos doesn't seem to have improved him a bit. (He was funnier and more compelling in KL.) But apparently bad dialogue worked in winning over Missandei and GW (for an awful moment I feared they were setting up a Love Triangle; please God, no). That was at least 10 times longer than it needed to be. It was cool when Daenerys turned up, albeit hardly surprising.

Another 7. Not a bad episode, a tad fillery. The main plusses are the Blackfish and confirmed Hound survival (and reformed). Also there's some pretty decent dialogue in this episode, chiefly in the aforementioned BF scene and QoT vs. Cersei. And Jaime has improved since they finally got him to the Riverlands. The North: OK. Tormund and Davos get to make nice speeches and we meet Lyanna Mormont, who is rather rude. Most of the North is clearly still suffering from a bout of amnesia. Ironborn: meuh. It's good that they're heading for Meereen. I daresay it had been a while since the last brothel scene. Arya ... ouch; didn't follow very coherently from her last scene, and you'd expect her to be more vigilant. (Why Septon Meribald is apparently Brother Ray in the show I don't know.)

Season 6, ep. 6: I'm giving this a 7. Most of the stuff was decent; but the proportions were off. For example, I liked watching Sam's family; but it went on longer than I think Sam's importance warrants. Daenerys, on the other hand, was -- although exciting enough -- so short as to be almost perfunctory. "Half a moment! I'll be right back after I've tamed and fetched this dragon. BACK!" "That was quick.." KL had a number of issues: 1. Margaery was telling Loras last episode not to give in to the Faith; now she seems to be on their side. This might not be a problem, since she could have been persuaded in the interim, or she could be faking it to avoid being punished or to use the Faith against Cersei. I did enjoy watching the byplay between the Faith, the nobles, and Margaery/Tommen. 2. I don't like how show-Jaime has (or hasn't) developed over the last couple of seasons. 3. Someone else raised this question: Why are they not marching against Dorne? Everyone seems to have forgotten all about poor Myrcella. Mind you, I'd rather endure a million incongruities of narrative and characterisation than another minute of Dorne dialogue. I think what happened here is they're going ack to the books, but forgetting to make it coherent in show terms. I enjoyed the brief(ish) Arya and Bran segments. I don't think Arya ever really wanted to be "No one". In the books, her first [authorized) murder could be quasi-justified by saying the chap was a jerk. That wouldn't work here.

Season 6, ep. 5: Another decent 8. This season is far better than last. Sansa's arc in particular is vastly improved. I love her rebuke of LF, but do wonder if the Showrunners realize they're also rebuking themselves for the implausibility of mastermind LF not knowing about Ramsay's notorious ... proclivities (unless he's *supposed* to be rather obtuse?). But yeah, liked pretty much everything about her this episode (esp. the cloak). Kingsmoot: I'm glad they had one, and it made sense to reduce it to Euron vs. Yara/Asha; but it felt a tad perfunctory, and Asha in the books makes better points than Yara in the show. Theon's presence was a nice touch, although sadly led to another emasculation joke. Arya's arc, which had been even more static in the show than in the books, seems to be moving now. Westerosi politics is a riot. Meereen ... interesting enough; why Varys is pooh-poohing a potential ally I don't know. Danaerys and Jorah: brief but touching. Which leaves Bran: fascinating revelations about COTF creating the WW/Others. I tend to find fight scenes boring-ish, since the narrative can kind of sit around while a lot of mayhem and yelling and grunting goes on; but this one actually felt suspenseful. Although I'd been spoiled about Hodor, it still had an impact--mainly because the incident didn't just kill the poor chap; it made him lose his wits.

Going for 8 with this one. There are still holes and weak links; but I was on the edge of my seat almost the whole time. Wall, etc.: There's one biggish hole here: Jon wants to go "home", but he doesn't want to fight? There's no way to go home without fighting. Maybe he's just confused after being dead. I like the reunion (it's about time someone Starky met someone else Starky) and that Sansa, after a season or so being the helpless victim, has a bit of spine now. Davos vs. Mel promises to be good, although it was immediately dissipated because Brienne has a score of her own. Littlefinger has brainwashed Robin; well, the latter is weak and not terribly savvy and a child; but LF continues to rely more on (momentary) plot armour than on cunning. Still, hopefully some build-up for the North remembering. It seems to have had a fit of amnesia lately. Must confess to getting a bit excited. Ramsay: bleh. We know he's bad already. Still, we did get a "Pink Letter" out of it; but at some cost. I think it might have made more sense for Karstark to be the one to deliver Rickon. Iron Islands: brief but good. Although, how is Theon going to help Asha/Yara? Maybe he'll speak for her at the Moot. KL remains a weak link. Pryce (the High Sparrow chap) is good, but talks too much. This segment felt rather diffuse. Possibly building up to a major confrontation between sparrows and bigwigs, which might be cool, or not. Cersei is still whitewashed-ish, but is also a master manipulator. I don't get Jaime. Meereen: At least now the conflict between Tyrion and GW/Miss has some substance, w/ some movement of events. Much better than last episode, if still not the strongest segment. Vaes Dothrak: That was intense. I guess Daenerys is still the Unburnt, and is now getting scary. I do wonder if the same effect couldn't have been obtained in more epic manner with a dragon. Where's Drogo? I liked Omara or whatever her name was, the younger khaleen type. Daario is still a jerk.

Episode 3: I'm vacillating between 6 and 7. There weren't any Sand Snakes, which is a plus; but there was a lot that was confusing or underwhelming or both. The pacing was a tad jerky. The bit with the resurrected Jon seemed rather perfunctory. But I liked the bit at the end (although -- possibly a nitpick -- would Jon have had them hung? Beheading seems more his style (the North and all that). Some decent set-up. Tower of Joy was OK, but maybe a little underwhelming. They're clearly taking as long as possible for the 'Orrible Revelations in 'Igh Life. The best part being where Bran calls after Ned and Ned acts as though he had heard ... something. KL: Good standoff between Tommen and HS. I got confused at the Small Council scene. Actually, I wondered a lot of the time what was going on. Why on earth are the Northern lords so docile in relation to Ramsay? Why is the North so inert? Joffrey was far less a monster than Ramsay *and* in a stronger position; but he was first rebelled against (riots in Season 2) and later killed. Meereen was also a bit mediocre. Varys was good (well acted); but Tyrion trying to make awkward small talk I don't think we needed. Arya, on the other hand, was more interesting than in the first two episodes. Final score (for now): 6.

I've gone up to 8 for this one; there were a lot of positives and relatively few negatives. Plusses: Lyanna, although they didn't do much with her (yet). Curious about Hodor; just a throwaway detail, or will it turn out signficant in any way? Practically everything about the Iron Islands, even if the thought that jumped into my head as Balon crossed the bridge was "Balon is an idiot and he's gonna die". Euron was cool and I like the "look" of the Iron Islands. Jon: The resurrection itself was impressive and gives hope for the books, if they ever get finished. Yes, I do wonder at Davos giving Mel a free pass for Shireen. The Wildlings ugh and grunt a lot. The dragons were cool. KL is a tad sloppy (and Cersei very whitewashed); as usual, the best bits involve the High Sparrow. Arya ... they're not doing a lot with her, are they? Will she ever warg? Another touching Theon-Arya scene; but I now have a nasty premonition about him. The body count continues to rise. A pity to lose McElhatton, who was also a tad underused. (My nightmare scenario has no one left alive except Ramsay and the Sand Snakes.) Yes, the dialogue is not what I'd call brilliant.

Last season I tended to rate episodes relatively generously, because I was still giving them the benefit of the doubt that they might be heading somewhere decent. Clearly that assumption was not borne out, at least where last season is concerned. So no more Mr. Nice Guy. That said, I did enjoy the episode for the most part (probably mainly because the actors are -- mostly -- so good. So ... Dorne: -1 for existing (what I call the Dorne Awfulness Reaction Number, or DARN), and another -1 for killing the only halfway decent characters/actors after underusing them, thus ensuring that for the rest of the series it will probably be even *more* rubbish. (The best thing about it is that snake during the credits, anyway.) -2 Wall: +2 for acting and possibly foreshadowing interesting Jon stuff, although I fear that with my luck they'll mess that up as well. -1 for a certain implausibility: the Night's Watch are far too docile; and Ser Alliser's argument that Jon Snow let the Wildlings in suggests an obvious riposte: "You did." +1 Boltons/Sansa: Here Sansa continues to be the damsel in distress, who might surrender without the Male Protector. And how would she not be familiar with the ceremonies of knighthood? There were some touching scenes with Theon and with Brienne. As for the Boltons, the best thing about them is McElhatton's Roose. Evens out to neither + nor -, I guess. Meereen and steppe scenes OK; did wonder why the caddish Khal suddenly got docile. My best guess is that since she's a widow of a Khal, she can't get casually turned into a concubine. But until she mentions having burnt Drogo, the new Khal seems unimpressed by that line of argument. I do like that Daenerys doesn't act too damsel-in-distressy, although she too evidently needs an MP. Score: 6. Who knows what I'll think when the season is over and we know where it's headed (or isn't). Re query about Mel at end: according to the wiki, she's removed the glamour that makes her look young and beautiful. That wiki also says, rather oddly, that Roose's trolling Ramsay about Wanda's pregnancy is "subtle".

Thanks!

Not that it terribly matters; but I don't think my posts in the Games forum are being added to my count. Perhaps it's supposed to work like that?

Yes, thank you! I find, though, that in my activity there's a gap between 17 September and 10 November; and when I look at Forum Games, it seems to be the same. Do I maybe need to log out and log in again?

Do we have any idea when content from October and early November will be back?

Thanks for all the effort! I didn't mean to sound obnoxious in my previous post; I tend not to react well to upgrades, etc.

I don't care for the new look; I don't like losing the "my content" feature whereby I could check for updates in the threads I was posting to (mostly nonsense); and I really do not like losing threads from the last month or so. On the plus side, if the melodramatic thread ever comes back, we'll have something else to be melodramatic about. (and I have most of that thread in a text file; but it's messy).

Looking back over my ratings for this season, the mean score is 8. But rating each storyline/POV as it has developed through the season might yield a very different result (for each, I have one score for writing/directing and one for acting, assuming there has been any acting): Bran, Iron Islands, Riverlands: It should be 0; but I'll allow 2 consolation points because Bran is probably difficult to televise and II are fairly marginal. Although Martin has spent too much time in the Riverlands, that does not excuse leaving out this rather important area altogether. Dorne was pretty bad. Ellaria was horribly mangled, flatly contradicting her anti-vengeance stance in the previous season. The Sand Snakes could pretty safely have been dispensed with, as apart from a botched attempt on Myrcella, their principal function appears to have been soft porn. Jaime and Bronn could have been quite good, except that hardly anything was done with them. Doran was even more underemployed. Directing/Writing/Interpretation (DWI): 3 Acting: 6 Winterfell/Sansa/Stannis: This is perhaps the plotline with the biggest gap, or rather chasm, between quality of DWI and quality of acting. I'll tackle DWI first. Firstly, the rationale for going to Winterfell was flawed: Littlefinger tells Sansa to avenge her family, but gives no indication as to how she is to do that; and she apparently doesn't question it. In theory, despite this hole, bringing Sansa to Winterfell could have been brilliant. Sansa could have taken on some of the role of the wildling women in planning her own escape, or she could have interacted with Northern malcontents--if there were any. Sadly, it seems as though the North were almost completely inert. I don't know how much this matters to Unsullied; but to anyone who has read the books and found the corresponding parts of the books to be a among the best things GRRM wrote, it is disappointing. Basically, the problem is this: Sansa takes on the role of Jeyne Poole; but JP is a tertiary character, whose function is to trigger Theon's redemption, so that the show has squeezed a primary character into the role of a tertiary character. With Stannis, the big problem, of course, is the burning of Shireen, which ruins his character. It makes no sense for Stannis to kill his only heir just to get through a snowstorm. Some have tried to defend this with the argument that Shireen is not a very promising heir; but I think this argument falls with the observation that, however promising or otherwise she may be, she is the only heir he's got. Still nowhere near as bad as Dorne, so DWI: 6 Acting: 9. Oddly, some of the best acting was in this plotline. King's Landing: This segment was decent, but had two problems: firstly, as a number of people have pointed out, the case against Loras isn't very good, since the star witness, as squire, would have known about the birthmark even if the accusations had been false; secondly, unlike the situation in the books, Cersei doesn't gain anything, apart from revenge, from arming the Faith Militant. The latter's reign of terror is also a little too blatant. DWI: 7 Acting was pretty good, LH and JP excellent; so: 8 Daenerys/Tyrion/Jorah: Tyrion's journey was actually an improvement over the books, at least as entertainment. I would have liked more of Volantis; and, although passing through Valyria was cool, it was a little generic. But bringing Tyrion to Daenerys was a definite plus. I had only three significant problems: Ser Barry's death; the Unsullied's ineffectiveness; and the fact that the SOH, despite being able to easily take out highly trained soldiers, don't seem able even to locate the person they supposedly most want to get rid of. DWI: 8 Acting: Also 8. EC's acting gets a fair amount of hate; but I think it's at least partly a matter of personality. Book (you know, speech recognition? Those weird, kind of hard square-ish things with black blotches on white paper things? I highly recommend them) Daenerys is sometimes playful, sometimes fiery; Show Daenerys is the Nordic Cool version. Someone called her Deadpan Stormborn. Arya: This isn't my favourite part of either the books or the show; but I thought it was handled decently enough. If I wanted to nitpick, I'd say that Braavos is rather grey, and that, although it makes sense in principle for the Kindly Man to be JH, a man finds that a man saying "a man" gets old after a while. The ending confused me, but maybe it was meant to. DWI: 8 Acting: 8 Jon/Wall: This segment had a lot of plusses: Aemon, JS getting killed, Hardhome (although this last was a little long). And it did have one of the principal themes of the books: the conflict in the NW as to whether to ally with the wildlings. It's missing a couple of other important themes, however. One is Jon's temptation to be arrogant, which he wrestles with from the beginning of the story and which manifests itself during his term as Lord Commander in, for example, his sending friends whose support he could use away. The other is the lure of outside events, especially those involving the Starks. I never really warmed to Olly; and after the relatively sympathetic portrayal of Thorne, I was a little disappointed that he was involved in the assassination (or assassination attempt? Stay tuned). Sam in Oldtown should be interesting. DWI: 8 Acting: 8 So DWI averages at around 6, and acting at around 8.

I thought this episode in enormous improvement over the last one. There were a few disappointments and head-scratchers; but I'm inclined to give it a 9 (opted in the end for 8). (I'm here talking about this specific episode, not the season as a whole.) From a show-watching point of view, I'm glad to see the end of Stannis as he has been portrayed in the show (and Brienne was good). But as a book-reader, it's a little disappointing to find out so early that he won't get the Iron Throne. I'd have liked for Book Stannis to be a contender for longer. (My remark about the show portrayal isn't directed against the acting, but the writing.) Winterfell/Sansa/Myranda/No-Longer-Reek was actually pretty good, possibly because (by this season's standards) it was fairly close to the books. I'm disappointed at the almost total erasure of Stark loyalists; but that's something for my global assessment of the season, rather than this particular episode. Well, at least we're done with Dorne now, and we got a nice father-daughter scene. Myrcella's attitude seems to have changed markedly from before; and she takes the news that she is an incest… I don't have time to fight speech recognition right now, so I'll just say illegitimate offspring… awfully well. I'm sorry she's gone, but doubt her demise makes much difference in the long run. Arya's assassination of MT was excellent, mainly thanks to MW's acting skills. I scratched my head a bit over JH's (if it is JH) death (if it is a death). Meereen/Dothraki/Daenerys was decent, although I'm not sure what was happening at the end. I missed the bit where she hears voices from her past, but am not sure how they could have transferred it to the screen. King's Landing was also pretty well done. (Oddly, it too was pretty close to the blocks. Coincidence [finally; you wouldn't believe how long it took to get speech recognition to type that fairly common English word]? Perhaps.) I did try to avert my gaze during the Walk of Shame, a scene that makes one uncomfortable even in the books. Wall: Well, we saw Olly stabbing Jon about 1,000,000 miles away. I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would; and am wondering if my objection isn't primarily based on the fact that it isn't the same as the books. Maybe Olly actually has more of an impact to an Unsullied (non-book) viewer than do Y and BM. My other question being whether it was as screamingly obvious to Unsullied that Olly was going to do the deed. (Book readers knew that someone had to do it.) A couple of things about the stabbing did disappoint me. Firstly, I was hoping Ser A wouldn't be involved, since he was one of the relatively few characters who are arguably more interesting in the show. Secondly, they didn't really build up to it with the Pink Letter, Jon speech, Wun Wun, etc. By comparison, the Uncle Benjen was a bit lame.

Here's what an Unsullied friend of mine had to say about the episode: "One question: WTF??" The big black letters are in the original.

I'm going to have to give this a 6. I just don't think the good makes up for the bad and mediocre. Apart from being horrible in itself, the burning of Shireen doesn't make sense to me. I don't see Stannis killing his only heir. Book Stannis would have told Melisandre to pray harder. It also has the unfortunate effect of taking away any sympathy we might have for Stannis; and I'm left with the sneaking suspicion that the show is going for shock value at the expense of plot and character. It's true that there were some incidental merits in this segment: Shireen's conversations with her Onion Knight and with Stannis, which were well acted and touching; Selyse… But they weren't quite enough. Daenerys: Drogon was cool, and the dialogue was decent. I think the fighting went on a bit too long, and was confusing. Dorne started out passably, now that Doran actually got to do something. Then it went downhill. I liked Ser Alliser. Braavos tended to drag; Mace was mildly amusing. I found the pacing in this episode rather poor in general.

GOT, season 5, episode 8 I guess I'll go with 9 for this one. My complaints were relatively small, and I thought the good was quite good. The Sansa/Theon/Boltons segment was brief but excellent. Cersei, also rather brief, was decent; it's good Kevan is coming back. I did wonder whether Cersei will end up confessing on account of Tommen, although then he would lose his throne, but maybe he would at least start eating again. I'm also glad Arya has finally been allowed to get out of the HOWAB and actually do things. They seem to have moved quite quickly after a rather slow season. I loved the scenes with Daenerys and Tyrion. If I were going to criticise them, I might say that Daenerys trusts Tyrion rather quickly. Also, Jorah being exiled a second time is slightly anti climactic. But the wheel more than made up for that. Again, I only have a couple of small complaints about The Wall segments. One being that I don't much care for Olly. The other being that the fight went on a bit too long. On the other hand, they do need to remind people that the Others/White Walkers/Whatever are a serious threat. I thought Jon's and Tormund's speeches were excellent; and I even liked "Karsi", even if I only know who she is thanks to the wiki.