Ser Gareth

1 - People have predicted Arya before (going back years before the show) but I always thought it a stretch. Hopefully we'll get an explanation. Maybe everyone has been reading the prophecy wrong and the Last Hero come again wasn't for a battle against the others....... 3 - The only true major characters in the books/show are Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon and Tyrion. I'm not expecting to see any of them die before E6.

They'll be more to the story, or at least there would have been if we ever got the books, I don't think Arya being the main instrument in defeating the Great Other is the third and final WTF moment.

No way D&D changed that from what GRRM told them. Too big a plot point for a major character.

Very. The undead would have overwhelmed Winterfell a lot faster if her forces hadn't been there and that means they'd have gotten to Bran a lot sooner.

Just having the books would be something, but considering how poor AFFC and ADWD were, I wouldn't hold out much hope. And unless D&D intentionally switched up GRRMs story to have Arya being the main instrument in defeating the Others (unlikely) then it's likely to go down a very similar way in the books.

7 for me. The NK being defeated so easily (individually), combined with the cliche nuclear bomb of taking him out stops all of them, was underwhelming IMO. And there are way too many characters still alive. I'm struggling to work out how Arya ended up being the TPTWP too and if Mel predicted the "blue eyes" thing then does that mean Mel foresaw Arya killing the NK? If so that makes no sense at all. Action sequences were decent though (if a little over heroic and convenient at times, but I forgive that as this is fantasy) and unlike others I didn't have a problem with the picture quality or darkness. I am assuming there is a reason Tormund survived, because it would have been fitting if he had died the way Lyanna Mormont did (which was by far the best death, if there is such a thing, in the episode).

I thought Drogon survived at the end there?

What source material?

Won't satisfy Dany. Her vision is to be defacto ruler. Not the Queen to the ruler. I doubt it will please Sansa either. If Jon was KITN then she was in line to that throne if something happened to him. If Jon ends up being King of Westeros then there is no KITN to be in line for.

Sorry, let me clarify. Dany doesn't have a prison where she is passing sentence on the Tarlys. So unless she wants to frog march prisoners all the way back to Dragonstone (bad idea) then it's let them go or execute them. Robert's decision to let both live had huge impacts later down the line. For a start Robert was cuckolded by his wife (who wouldn't have even been his wife had he executed Jaime), Bran would be able to walk etc. and so forth.

Nothing clean about hanging. A horrible way to go! Randyll was to blame for Dickon's death. He should have commanded Dickon to bend the knee.

Thankfully. Book Euron is one of the worst characters I've come across in any form of literature ever. His absurdity would look even worse translated on the screen.

Dany doesn't have a prison and Robert had being male and growing up in Westeros all his life in his favour. It should also be noted that the decision to allow Jaime Lannister and Balon Greyjoy to keep their heads has retrospectively turned out to be two disasterous decisions!

That's at the reunion. I'm not sure how much time has passed by the end of the episode versus that reunion. I'd be disappointed if he found it in E02 what happened. My assumption is he would have been told off screen between the reunion and the end of the episode.

One of the reasons the books have lost it is due to GRRM's insistence on showing as many little details on page as possible. If the show had done that, it would have been cancelled early on. Days, weeks, months can pass on the show between scenes (and chapters in the books). There has to be some assumptions that many obvious things are simply discussed or advised off screen. The viewer has already seen what has happened first hand. We don't then need characters recapping every event in later episodes unless there is an obvious pay off, e.g. Dany telling Sam she executed his family!

That's always been the theme of the books / show. A complete unwillingness to look the obvious in the face and fall back on human conflicts that mean very little.

We have a preconceived notion of what Northerners are like based on us following the Starks. The thing is, the Starks are not representative of the North and this "batch" of Starks aren't really representative of what we know about the Starks. They are pretty much the product of Eddard, who seems most Un-Northman like compared to the other Houses and his older brother from what we're learning in the books. Dany could have diffused much of the tension early on though. She chose to remain silent when she should have spoken up and focused purely on the threat of the WW and how they needed to be stopped and the only way to achieve that is for mankind to face the enemy together. She was being way too respectful to Jon and didn't want undermine him.

100% the correct call on her part, especially once he rejected the notion of taking the Black. You can't make a public threat and then back down on it if you want to retain credibility. It's why Jon had no choice but to follow through with the execution of Slynt even when Slynt started begging and said he'd follow orders. The problem most people seem to have is that she burned them. If it had been Eddard, Sansa, Jon, Jaime etc. in charge of that situation and they beheaded or hanged them, then the "outrage" wouldn't be there at all.

Which is primarily a Targ! I agree there is definitely foreshadowing there.

I don't like show Euron but he is 10x better than book Euron. Book Euron is comfortably the most unbelievable and daft character in the entire series. Evil Jack Sparrow on acid......

Excellent episode, setting the scene nicely. A lot of scenes from the trailer were Ep1 so they really have done their utmost not to give too much away. Couple of silly moments, mainly around Jon and his Dragon riding. But I enjoyed the rest. Now have to wait another week. It's going to be a long week....

I almost forgot to add! Nice of someone in Eastwatch to send a raven to Castle Black to tell them to hang on in there because Stannis has just arrived with an army! But then that would have spoiled the surprise....

Debating with you is pointless because you simply accuse people of being stupid or lying when they disagree with you. Thanks for the link. I'll have to try and dig out the interview I saw where he talked about writing it. As for the plot holes involving the Others? Some may be explained further down the line but off the top of my head? Royce, Will and Gared are only a few days ride from the Wall when the Others kill Royce. There were a few Others that did the butchery and then Will was turned. All this happens years before the end of ADWD. So the Others are already that close to the Wall and yet won't launch an attack. The counter argument to this is they are either waiting for Winter to arrive (although it has been confirmed the seasons are supernatural and therefore the Others may actually be the ones who bring the Winter) or to build up their forces by killing off as many Wildlings as possible. If it's the former, fine. If it's the latter then the idea is forced for convenience. Gared somehow makes it over the Wall. Only he'll ever know how. Apparently this veteran of the Watch was terrified by what he saw and had some kind of PTSD. It's a massive stretch a respected NW veteran wouldn't have gone back to Castle Black to report on what he witnessed. Uncle Benjen goes missing and conveniently it's the two men that went missing with him that are found dead near the Wall (not surprising considering the Others have been so close to the Wall for a long time but done sweet FA about it, but slightly surprising that no living Rangers have actually spied their Wights up to this point). But then maybe the Others are doing all they can to keep their presence a secret. In which case they royally fucked up by allowing the two Wights to roam so close to Castle Black. Their corpses are brought back to Castle Black where they re-animate and kill people. At this point you'd think Mormont would be sending ravens throughout the entire world to let people know that he just survived an assassination attempt by an undead assassin. People would certainly be likely to initially ignore it (except maybe the Mormont family? Just fucking maybe they might care?!) but I am sure that Mormont would want to impress on everyone the severity of this and would keep sending out Ravens that those that didn't respond. And also send out Ravens to those that DID respond but refused to help or called him a nutter. After several Raven communications I am also pretty sure that at some point the recipient Lordling would be of the mind "Oh FFS, not another Raven. OK already. I'll send an envoy up to see what the fuck is going on.". But no. No one is even talking about it! And speaking of envoys, surely the NW would at least send riders to the Northern holdfasts to tell them what happened if no one bothered to respond by raven? So Mormont sends Thorne down to King's Landing with the Wight hand. Did Thorne show this to anyone on the way? Or anyone else at King's Landing? Or for the sake of the plot was he just too fucking stupid and determined to show it to no one but the King? Wouldn't Varys and/or Littlefinger find out about the hand? Between them they seem to know everything else no matter how unlikely (that's another massive plot convenience but let's not go there!). Tyrion acts like an idiot and his intrigue as to why Thorne would have been sent down to KL isn't there (how convenient!) so predictably the hand rots. Tyrion chooses to ignore all of Thorne says (convenient!). Maybe he thinks that fabled big joke Mormont has sent Thorne to KL as a lark. Anyway, back on to Benjen's wights. Where the fuck is Benjen anyway? Very convenient that it's his two companions that show up dead, thus preserving the mystery of what happened to poor old Benjen (my personal hope is that he has been turned into an Other!). But how did the two companions end up there? I've heard several theories over the years. Benjen planted them there to be found by his Brothers. Obviously nonsense of course because if he had done that why not just walk up to Castle Black and tell them rather than play clue. The Others put them there to be found and be assassins. Again highly unlikely as if the plan was to kill the Lord Commander all that would happen is a new one would be chosen and now the realms of men know about the undead. So the most simple explanation is the obvious one. It's good for the story and nothing more than that. So, dumb old Mormont decides not to heckle the realm into submission. He'd much rather lead the already under strength watch on a ranging to find out what the Wildlings are up to and what else is out there. And yes, he is going to lead them himself. Interestingly he talks about wishing he'd asked the Wildlings why they burned their dead. Which is a bit daft because I am 100% sure that the NW would already know the superstitions behind such things. Especially as we know there is "traffic" between the NW and the Wildlings. Maybe everyone else knew but just declined to tell Mormont. Speaking of declining to tell anyone. Mance Rayder, the King beyond the Wall who united the Wildlings BECAUSE of the threat of the Others (and because Eddard knew who he was, this had presumably started happening a good few years before the start of AGOT) didn't once think to himself "hang on, maybe we should send envoys to the Wall to see if they'll let us pass?!". Or maybe form a truce? Nope, despite apparently being a bit savvy he decides that's not the best course of action at all and does everything secret squirrel so he can approach the Wall en masse and bust through it (thus losing his protection against the Others) instead. Anyway, Mormont's ranging does not go according to plan. But now the NW knows the Others do exist! Do they repeatedly send Ravens begging for help and taking no for an answer? Do they send riders to the northern holdfasts warning all and sundry? Do the smallfolk relentlessly talk about what they heard what is going on at the Wall (they seem to bloody know an awful lot about everything else, even if it's a bit warped through Chinese whispers!)? Thanks to the NW sending out hundreds of ravens the realm is awash with rumour and gossip about the Wall. The smallfolk, the lords, the ladies are all talking about it! Oh hang on. No. No one gives a shit. Not even remotely curious. Not a single person in the entire realm. Except for some poor sap that's learning to read....... Which leads us to Stannis's ninjas. No one knows the haunted forest like the free folk! They even have an eye in the sky, presumably patrolling for miles around to ensure they don't get flanked by another Night's Watch force coming from one of the other castles. Except they fail to spot or hear about a heavily armoured army that spends a few days marching from Eastwatch along the Wall. As it happens the Others seem to ignore this army as well. How lucky is that?!

Do you have a link of that confirmation? Because I remember at the time GRRM specifically said he wrote it as lip service to fans who often asked him who'd win a fight between Bronn and the Hound. There is nothing wrong with Jorah seeing Tyrion on a Brothel in Volantis. Yes, the odds are pretty high. But what is "convenient" is how often in the story it happens. It's funny because, justifiably, people have been annoyed at all the teleporting in the latest season. The reason people are annoyed is because Westeros is meant to be huge. And yet despite this huge size the chance meeting that characters keep having is quite absurd. But I am not even talking about minor things like that. I'm talking about huge plot holes that to enjoy the story you simply have to ignore. Most of them occur at the Wall or involve the Others. The pacing of that part of the story is dreadful as is the convenience that no one seems to give a shit. And the scrapped five year gap can't even be blamed for that because GRRM was writing ADWD with the 5 year gap for quite some time after ASOS before he decided to scrap it.

I think you're debating apples vs oranges. Firstly the show is based on the books. Based is the right word. It's not an adaptation of the books. Secondly I'd expect a show that is based on the books to be reasonably faithful to the main plot of the books but I wouldn't expect it to be particularly faithful to minor details. For example if they had changed the names of all the houses in the North other than Stark? That would be fine. The impact on the story is minimal. If they decided to leave out Dragons when the Dragons are integral to the story? That wouldn't be fine as the show would no longer be based on the books.