Kyll.Ing.

Would it be inappropriate to point out the irony of the situation? I mean, somebody putting loads of effort into something we all know and love (and doing a great job at it!), promising that the expected "delivery" of the Next Big Thing will happen "soon", but with unfortunate and unforeseen delays time and time again, and the process becoming more complex than they originally envisioned? It sounds like something I've heard before...   Back then, the end result was great, though, well worth the wait and leaving us eager for more. So I have faith in you!     For the next one, maybe you should announce it only when it's finished? That way, fans won't nag you as much about it, and you won't feel bad promising dates and then having to set them back.

Oh, the fun things he could say. Daenerys and viewers alike would take it damn seriously, no matter what... "Beware the three-legged desk!" "I was never in the Kingsguard... I just made all that up." "Clear my browser history!" "I know who the Harpy is!" *chuckles, then dies* "Rhaegar... he was kinda into dudes." "I know you paid nothing for these Unsullied... but you were still ripped off." Now, how to make a thread on this without being spoilery in the title?

It's not as much their fighting style as it is their course of actions. They made no attempt to cover each other or coordinate their fighting. No orderly retreat (actually, no retreat whatsoever, but I guess character reasons would be good enough there), no commands being shouted (Grey Worm being their general and all, you'd think he'd have an instruction or two to come up with). No attempt to break out, or focus their attacks. The Unsullied had trained literally their entire lives for combat, not only the actual swinging of weapons but also their conduct in battle, yet they acted laughably unprofessional. Even at a disadvantage, they would know better than to try their chances at the "every man for himself" tactic. But no, they split up like teens in a poor horror movie, and went on to fight terribly against what would realistically be a rather poor group of enemies. Consider the Sons of the Harpy. They're made up of disgruntled former slave owners, and possibly also a couple of former slaves. The Meereenese culture is shown not to be very martial, if anything the slaves would do all the fighting while the masters watched for amusement. Yet somehow these masked bandits fight quickly and effectively, and to the last man. When did they get the training to fight like that? And more importantly, to stay spirited and remain in combat while their brethren were cut down by Grey Worm and Barristan? A bunch of medieval couch-dwellers suddenly have enough martial skills to overpower trained soldiers, and the guts to fight to the last man, despite rapidly losing a numerical advantage (and fighting with knives, wearing bedsheets and sight-impairing masks, no less). That's not something you learn in the few weeks of Daenerys' stay in Meereen. OK, we can consider the possibility that it's been more than a few weeks. It's been an entire season after all. It might have been as much as a year, during which the Sons of the Harpy could have gone through a rigorous close-quarters-combat training camp and devotion seminar. Then the question remains: Why the heck were the Unsullied still fighting as if they've just seen a city for the first time? You'd think an entire year of patrolling would have taught them that spears work poorly in narrow streets (it's not like Meereen is lacking those). They also have their tradition of devoting their lives to service, including loads of training and exercise every day. At some point, they should have figured out an alternate tactic for fighting in streets. The spear is a battlefield weapon after all, and at least the officers of the Unsullied would know the concept of evaluation. Someone must have discovered how impractical spears would be in Meereen's streets, at least when patrolling in small groups, and tried to do something about it. In short, it's not that the Unsullied swung their weapons poorly that annoys me. It's how they totally lacked preparation for the situation, and handled it extremely unprofessionally when the stuff hit the fan, combined with the ridiculous super-buffing of the Sons of the Harpy for it all to even out.

So, first time I comment on a show episode on here. But I feel this needs to be commented on. First and foremost, my biggest annoyance. The show first takes time to explain, via Mace, but still, that the crown has no money and is hugely endebted. Then Cersei goes to talk to the High Sparrow. They have already set up the scene to play out like the books, where Cersei thinks herself a genius for erasing the crown's debt to the church, and getting rid of the sparrows (while being brilliantly manipulated by the High Sparrow). But no, this time the Faith Militant is reformed for a completely different (and pointless) reason, without the High Sparrow's influence, even. That the Faith Militant then goes completely bananas in the span of what seems like ~5 minutes doesn't make the whole ordeal more fun to watch. In the books, at least they started gently enough. Speaking of Mace Tyrell, it's nice to see them follow Arya's plot up to Mercy, at least. Westerosi envoy + person on death list + Braavos... Yeah, we know that setup. Jaime and Bronn landing in Dorne, well, I've got nothing concrete to say there. The Sand Snakes, however... yeah. Also, I don't think this has been brought yet, but when we see the captain buried to his neck in the sand: how the heck did they dig that hole? And why? To pass time? Could have just tied him up or something. Also, I didn't see any sand piles anywhere. Logic dictates there should be a pretty large one close to the hole. Littlefinger's plan also makes little sense. Hey, let's bring Sansa to a war zone, and hope she'll come out on top. Oh, by the way, business in King's Landing. Bye! As if King's Landing was just down the street. If I recall correctly, it took Robert a month to go to Winterfell from there, or more. Arya and the band didn't even clear the Crownlands during her time with Yoren. And the fight at the end... Sad to see the Unsullied be so unprofessional. They walk straight into a trap in a tight formation. Instead of locking shields and scurrying for the door (or even freaking talk to another! They're drilled to be a unit, dammit!), they go all mano à mano with their poorly suited weapons, and lose badly to a bunch of former slave owners, a non-martial caste of a non-martial culture, wearing bed sheets and sight-impairing masks. Not even an attempt to retreat or raise an alarm was made. Even a coordinated attack in either direction would mow the slave owners down like grass, but no, they split up the formation and fight every man for himself. "Yeah, but they're battlefield soldiers!" And primarily sold and bought to use as household guards. Why would there even be a marked for Unsullied if they were so hilariously inept at their job? You'd think half a lifetime of training would give them some experience on fighting in close quarters, since it doesn't take that long to learn to stand firm in a square like they do on the battlefield. Barristan also decides to go in alone when he sees fighting, and instead of quickly turning back and get reinforcements when he sees the carnage, he enters the fray. Alone. Okay, he does kill a few of the Sons, but it's still a rather poor decision. Speaking of the Sons, they seem to be awfully skilled and devoted guerilla soldiers for only having existed for a month or two, being formed by the families of former slave owners (with zero incentive to ever learn how to fight). One would think some would lose their spirit after seeing half their comrades butchered, or two thirds, but no, they fight to the last man standing, and gleefully charge at the man who's killed half a dozen of their compatriots in as many strikes of the sword. Not even the White Walkers have been built up to be as effective, devoted or heartless antagonists as that. If they believe so strongly in their cause, willing to die for it without hesitation, and capable enough in a fight to kill experienced soldiers who can neither feel pain nor fear, one cannot help to wonder why they lost the city to begin with (or why they didn't fight to the last man when the city was taken). Also, R+L is a thing. It was heavily implied not to have been rape, since Rhaegar was a good guy. Jon Snow is also special, and it wasn't Ned Stark's style to father a bastard. Hm, I feel like these clues point towards something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what... We're also reminded what Greyscale is, for some reason. The Stone Men have moved their whereabouts to Valyria, which happens to lie right in the path of Tyrion and Jorah. Again, having read the books twice, all I can put together from that is a big "huuuuuuhhh???".

Arguably, that's not important. What matters for him is to get to the tournament, not necessarily to win it. If he enters and loses epically in the first round, he is still in the Vale.

Somewhat related to the problems other people keep posting, I sometimes get that a page loads fully... then promptly unloads back to the logo only. For a split second, I can see all the pictures and images, then it goes all white. Why on Earth would a website do that? I mean, once I can see the text the job of loading the page should be done, right? Mostly, though, the page refuses to load at all. If I have an actual link to a wiki page, rapid-clicking it with the mouse wheel to open a bunch of tabs in quick succession sometimes helps. The ?action=purge trick doesn't help either. I still only get the logo.