Ferocious Veldt Roarer

Actually, Tysha was included in the show. They devoted several precious minutes of boobless screen time for Tyrion to tell her story. Those demons haunted him back in Season 1. It would've been an understandable decision not to include her in the first place. But to introduce such a part of Tyrion's personal history, only to completely forget about it later, seems just sloppy.

That would be OK, if not for the fact that the Unsullied didn't even give the formation a chance. There was no need to break it, it dissolved on its own within a blink of an eye. And if you put a phalanx-like unit in a Thermopylae-like setup, you need to let them kick some major ass before killing 'em all.

I beg to differ. They're supposed to be soldiers, not warriors; they acted like warriors, not soldiers. No coordination, every man for himself.

Ah, the Unsullied. Discipline and formation. Formation and discipline. That's what they're famous for. Scratch famous, legendary. So what happens when a handful of them get ambushed in a narrow alley? Equipped with their standard issue shields and spears? That's right, a bunch of uncoordinated individual fights at shortest possible distance. What the Unsullied were good at, again?... The Sand Snakes. Oh my, what a sad bunch of cartoon, one-dimensional, unlikeable, unrelatable villains. Comparing them to the originals put aside (I, for one, am no book purist and I don't automatically loathe any change), they're simply shitty characters on their own. Melisandre begins to look like a ripoff of Areola, the foreign exchange student from "Not Another Teen Movie" (NSFW). Like, seriously, I almost expected to hear "My breasts are perky, yes?". Or maybe that's what Melisandre has always been? Dunno. Anyway, Areola was an OK minor character in a comedy, but not sure if she works in a drama. But I liked that the show makers keep working at humanizing Stannis, because maybe that means they'll kill him off soon? Throw us a bone, before GRRM kills him off in Book 6? A boy can dream...

Warning. I'm gonna rant. While I myself am a big fan of ASOIAF, and only a casual show watcher, I need to say: all that "they changed it, now it sucks" stuff is srsly furrealz ridiculous. Boohoo, so Tommen bedded Margaery, thus they obviously discarded the "gasp, Marg no virgin!1!" play with something different... so what? Was the "gasp, Marg no virgin!1!" play really that awesomelicious? You really fell in deep deep love with that subplot and nothing else could possibly be this this this absolutely super? I'm calling BS. Boohoo^2, there's this cool quote in teh book, but in teh show nobody mentions no block! Ruined!!! Ya know what? I've read the book. And the block-fetching is decisively not what made the biggest impact on me. Nor second biggest. Nor third biggest. That scene, actually, was not first and foremost about block-fetching. Seriously. There's plenty of stuff in the show to have a decent, legit whine about, and you pull that shit instead? Sheesh. They're making a TV adaptation which is a TV adaptation. Make peace with that fact.

Yay, the search is back for today. Is there any sort of a schedule, when it's on or off? Any way to predict it?

It seems that when the number of entries in that list exceeds 383 (yes, that's my list), it stops working altogether. Deleting names until it shrinks below the limit restores the functionality, until I need to again add another name.

Since yesterday (or the day before yesterday, I'm not sure), the "Ignore" list ceased to work. I can see everything! And it's disturbing.

:rofl: That was a genuine, literal LOL.

Lord Janos was a coward, his meltdown in ADWD leaves preciously little room for doubt (he had a similar one earlier when Tyrion went from "I'm a friendly imp" mode to "OK, and now off to the Wall with you"). He was essentially a courtier, not a warrior. Ser Alliser? Well, he was an asshole and a lousy dance master, but I don't remember any hints of him being cravenly. Their perceived friendship does look a little like a "we hate Jon Snow" club.

Pretty much. There were complaints about the Meereneese wholesale crucifixion, even though it had more screen time than in the books, looked appropriately gruesome, and showed Dany as more bloodthirsty and more reason-resistant than in the books, as being "glossed over" as a part of consistent "whitewashing" of Dany. I remember, also, someone complaining that show!Stannis' reaction to Davos smuggling his nephew away did not include his famous "cart before the horse" line, even though in the book he said that much, much later, after the whole business with the Battle Beneath the Wall. And now, as I see, some already complain in advance that the battle which took whooping half a dozen paragraphs in the book, in the show won't be appropriately epic.

I wouldn't say "flat". Rather "incomplete". It's not a bug, it's a feature, that's how the penultimate episode is supposed to be. Ideally, to make you jump from your chair and angrily shout "where is my fucking conclusion?!" at the screen, and impatiently wait whole week for the finale.

What do you mean, "moved to next season"? Kingsmoot belongs in the next season. It's something like 11th chapter of AFFC.

But it's as finished as it was in the books. They repel the attack, then there's a big interlude of Jon Snow being accused of treason, Jon Snow being sent to "parley" with Mance, etc. So in this instance the show pretty faithfully follows pacing of the books. It sets up a collection of narrative climaxes for the season finale. Stannis coming North, Tywin not, after all, shitting gold, a goodbye between Arya and the Hound, and in Essos who the fuck knows, but maybe we'll see some boobs.

Nah. It isn't an "I'm so happy" smile. It's a "this is all fucking ridiculous" smile.

A meta observation: the "book spoilers" thread's count - 768 posts. "No spoilers" - five posts. Is there even a point?