WhitewolfStark

Not really how George works as a writer. Typically he has the message that one has to marry someone completely outside of one's own tribe to earn points in his greater writing universe. He has a lot of characters in his writing career who are frequently having sex with a woman or a man who looks exactly like them (only of the opposite gender), and it's typically a sign that the characters are stunted as individuals, narcissistic, and selfish. The critique being that they're so absorbed with themselves, that they like to have sex with a mirror image of themselves, essentially. It's a critique of all the old pairings of "boy/girl meets his/her exact match in the opposite gender and marries her or likes her upon first sight". You know like how Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck and Daisy Duck are essentially the same characters, the only distinction between them being their genders. It's a trope that was very very popular in cartoons, but also our live action entertainment (I seem to recall every "chunky" or "overweight" couple find an equally "chunky" or "overweight" person to match off with (the second stepsister in the film Ever After, and her new beaux who's the Prince's Captain of the Guards fall into this category easily--the film going out of their way to hammer the point home by having the two dress up for the ball both in horse costumes and grazing over the banquet table each when meeting). GRRM in his writing frequently writes about how people need to move beyond finding such pairings, as "pairing off" in that manner only encourages the "us vs them" mentality he rails against if one only intermarries within one's own tribe, and one's own likeness. His argument being if we as a people only marry and interact with "people like us" how else are we ever going to understand "people not like us". And if we don't understand "people not like us", what's to stop us from seeing them with hostility, and eventually wage war against them? Nothing, is what GRRM typically answers, as societies that don't intermarry with outsiders are typically portrayed as backwards and dying cultures that are locked in a constant struggle against an "other" that they don't understand, and need to desperately learn this lesson if there's any hope for survival. That they don't learn the lesson typically means death, tragedy and destruction sooner or later in GRRM's universe. That the original plan was for a trilogy of books to have it start by a character (Ned) discovering and opposing an incestuous relationship between two individuals who are more typical of his greater ouvre (Cersei and Jaime), and have "corrupted the Kingdom" by planting their own children instead of the King's--only to originally intend to end said trilogy with a similar such relationship blossoming among his own "children" (one natural and one adopted) tells me everything that I need to know about the original idea of Jon and Arya--even if they are cousins, it's George's way of saying not much has changed over the course of the novels, beyond the people who sit on the throne. A rather depressing ending, truth be told. Personally, I'd prefer if Jon were to remain unattached at the end of the novels, or if he HAS to be with someone, put him with Val.

4. It could have been worse. Show!Dorne is at this point not worth watching.

Season Three, Mel and Stannis have a disagreement on how to sacrifice Gendry. Stannis says to just do it and be done with it (no need to torture the boy by dressing him up and lying to him). Mel says that if the "lamb" sees the knife and knows it's about to be killed, fear settles into its bones and it's a tainted sacrifice. And that she has done many sacrifices and the lamb has never seen the knife coming. It shows that Stannis is taking Mel's way--and I thought Stephen Dillane did a great job at depicting how it was killing him--though I think with another episode or so they could have expanded just how desperate their situation was to better develop this. And I think they could have had a better father-daughter relationship before this season, doing it now just feels like catch up.

I do like how in this episode they did attempt to bring in some parallels (Tommen and Myrcella both proclaim to a parent that they love someone and have blind faith and innocence for instance, and a parent realizes that they've spent so much time trying to protect their child that they never had the chance to know them; Sansa and Cersei actually had a parallel where they both learned that their abilities at manipulation are hitting brick walls and they are not so skilled at such things concerning people they think they know what buttons to push when really that person holds all the cards--Ramsay and the High Sparrow equally). It doesn't substitute for the themes the book touches on, but seeing ironic reflections (Margaery is playing Tommen to secure power for herself--though she might think him a sweet boy nonetheless vs Trystane actually passionately loves Myrcella; Sansa is a rank beginner in manipulation vs Cersei who thinks she's a pro) sorta makes up for it, but not really. I'm not liking the Calvinistic turn they're bringing to the High Septon but it fits in with the rest of their bringing modern day commentary as part of the society-wide social backlash against the 35 year rule of the Moral Majority/Religious Right in the United States that's going on right now. I still think it's blatantly out of place, but I'll accept that the show has an agenda to push and roll my eyes. If this were the actual Reformation though, I would expect that King's Landing would turn into the Muenster Commune at this point, which would actually be in LF's favor considering what the Muenster Commune ended up turning into. If you're confused about what I mean when I say the Muenster Commune and want a quick overview, click the spoiler button, if you don't want it, read on. The larger point is though, that Calvinism hadn't yet taken over the Reformation ideals, and that the early Reformation idea of getting back to the "primitive church" was very different from the kind of organization we see the Sparrows create in the show and the books. The show Sparrows are most definitely making a commentary on today and thus the Sparrows have a definite Religious Right/Moral Majority undertone to them (and a few latter-day Reformation (aka post-Calvinistic) beliefs that would be anachronistic otherwise sneaked in there, as well as the emphasis on the modern issue of homosexuality that the RR/MM has struggled with since the 1980s). The Sparrows of the books are much more like the Medieval attempts at getting back to basic beliefs (in the tradition of the St. Francis or St. Benedict, mixed with a bit of the Cistercians) and is much more believably Medieval in tone. They're just the new kid in a long line of monastic orders (we can assume exist) in the books--and not a Reformation or complete splinter in faith. And as a last note I could have done without the glorifying of the whorehouse (I feel like this entire season they've been trying to make me feel bad about the end of the whorehouse depravities--when actually that I was cheering on as I'm sick and tired of sexposition and nudity for nudity's sake), that I really felt like laughing about. Great "tragedy" that it's gone indeed. :rolleyes: Though I am surprised that LF himself hasn't been arrested for owning the whorehouses in the first place, yet. Episode 9, perhaps? Well it was good to see that the audition piece for Tyene actually got in to the show... other than that I feel like the Dorne prison scene was pointless as it essentially kept the status quo where it was, when there could have been consequences... but we gotta keep Bronn alive because he's a show favorite. Ahh well.

Really excited by all the possibility of this episode! :)

It looks to me like if we are being set up to eventually see Sweetrobin again. He'll come back having taken a level in badass from Lord Royce's School for Knights and Squires it seems--confirming my suspicions that they're just going to merge Sweetrobin and Harry the Heir into one person in a later season (if either has a greater role to play). That's of course, if he comes back... but I get the feeling we wouldn't have seen him at all this season if he wasn't going to possibly come back as a character. I should note he was left on a laughable but memory stand out moment. I feel if that was going to be the very last we see of the character, it would have been more likely that we wouldn't have seen him at all. So, that's my prediction, Sweetrobin returns in a later season (probably Season 7 for a "grand showdown", or maybe halfway through Season 6 at earliest) having taken a level in badass (and likely recast).

A solid six. The weak spots that I thought were going to be weak were played off for badly done comedy (Vale characters--Sansa, Littlefinger, Robin) and too intense despair (Brienne, and Pod)--not that Brienne wouldn't react that way after that, but I think they chose a bad take of the scene. Not really a fan of the Varys change, but I can understand why they did it. Conleth and Dinklage do amazing jobs as always. Issue with that scene is more the script change than anything else. Dany was good until she did the whole "Viseryon, Rhaegal... come out come out wherever you are" scene--would have been better if she hadn't said a word at all during the sequence--calling out their names ruined it. Daario was nicely handled, as was Mance--but then I like the actor as an actor (though I do agree he was miscast). Jon/Mance scene was mehh... could have been better, could have been worse--most of it up to the less than stellar dialog, though both actors do try and work around it with good visual acting cues, so that's something. Dang are they doing the bad exposition drop with Kevan Lannister's explanation of the Sparrows (as subtle as a Looney Tunes anvil), though Lancel was appropriately creepy in the fanaticism for his scenes. The obvious set up for Loras still hanging around while fanatics cluster at the edges, shows he's getting reckless or too comfortable (a common theme throughout the episode). Forgettable scenes were the Grey Worm and Missandei dialog, though I guess now Missandei is going to put herself in danger finding out why Unsullied would visit a brothel. The best scene IMO was where the Unsullied actually visits a brothel for just a hug and then gets killed by the Son of the Harpy. Well done, well done indeed. It worked on the source material well, but also felt somewhat fresh all the same.

The play mixes a lot of Shakespeare references together creating a mishmash. Notably though in terms of plot it has much more in common with Richard III, especially that opening monologue that the dwarf gives--it downright paraphrases the infamous beginning monologue to Richard III. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px5hvNWoVLE