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To be fair, this episode continues the show (especially this season, and likely increasingly going forward) tradition of things happening with little regard to proper character motivation or logic. Brienne doesn't mention the Hound; Davos asks about resurrection; Theon wants to go "home"; we can understand WHY this is happening from a meta and narrative point of view, but not at all within the universe and character cohesive manner. This is the inevitable result of there no longer being a book to adapt for most of this, and just the fact that D&D have already made themselves accustomed to taking any and all shortcuts to get characters from A to B.

I can live with it just enough, but they best not push me too far. But yes, otherwise I thought this episode was great and showed promise for the Season going forward. Things are moving very fast. I like that, even while it comes with the poor consequences of what I detailed above.

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4 hours ago, marsyao said:

 Many of the 'men of the nights watch' BEFORE THEY JOIN THE WATCH were thiefs, rapers, etc if you do not know the difference, I do not waste my time, I really do now want to waste my time to argue with you

 

A hint, NW is very much respected by people in Westero from high Lords to smallfolks,

The NW is not very much respected at all. Ser Alliser Thorne was laughed out of King's Landing. No Southern Lords ever listen to their pleas for more help. Barely any Northern lords do either. Only the Starks seem to really give enough of a shit. The entire theme of Jon's story in book 1 was accepting his new misfit family of dishonored men, thieves, and rapists. If the NW were so respected people would willingly join them often, rather than having them recruit the riff-raff from dungeons and have the occasional 4th son or bastard of a Lord be sent to take a position of command.

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2 hours ago, Donaldys I Trumpagar said:

You are confused about the difference between "siding with" the wildlings and "surrendering" to them. Surrendering, to emphasize, after they just saw Wun Wun shrug off a crossbow bolt and then with one swipe grab the shooter & smash him against a wall.

Besides, both in the show (which is relevant to this discussion) but also in the books the NW hasn't been acting heroically or principled lately -- they've mutinied & murdered their last two Lord Commanders.

As an aside: do you either watch the show or read the books? It seems you do neither.

What are you talking about, do you remember how NW brothers behaved in old bear's expedition  and their heroic defense of the war agains much worse Odd? and ... ok, whatever, I give up, I can stand this nonsense anymore

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18 hours ago, Miley the Monstrous said:

Not even Kit's hokey face/acting in that resurrection part ruined it for me. 

I can tell you from firsthand experience that the waking up bit was actually quite realistic. Back muscles twitching, eyes flaring open, and trying to suck all the air in the room into one's lungs with one breath... pretty much how I saw a victim of heart failure react to being rescuscitated in real life. And he had only been out for a minute, before we got his blood circulation going with CPR. Keep in mind that the body experiences drowning if CO2 can't be removed from the lungs (the human body is actually incapable of detecting a lack of oxygen, it's the excess CO2 we feel), so getting air into "dead" lungs is a reaction similar to being rescued from drowning in water. The body is panicking and thrashing, fighting to get air to the lungs.

Now, realistically, Jon would calm down awfully quick and go blank again. What happens after that, I can't tell, the paramedics took over from there.

 

 

Anyway, I actually liked this episode. A neat little reveal with Hodor there, and I can understand the deviation from the name Walder. Wyllis isn't too bad a name, actually.

The first scene in King's Landing was... well, may I say nice? Bringing back a briefly seen character from the previous season (is it the same actor, though?), while also showing off the strength of Robert Strong. Even in semi-death, he appears to have retained his love for head smashing.

Tommen building some character is good too. He's more than just Cersei's puppet, he starts acting and reacting to things himself, and making decisions of his own. And now he goes to Cersei for advice on how to be strong. The last Lannisters will go down hard, it seems. Meanwhile, the High Sparrow shows that he's becoming a power player.

And Bran won't be in the cave forever? Hooray! It's a poor end for such a central character, rotting away in a remote cave. Worst case, they'll kill him, but even that is better than "rooted forever after".

The dragons are loose in Meereen too. Or at least out of their chains. Wonder if Tyrion told anybody? I can imagine somebody trying to get into the dungeon to kill the dragons, only to find they aren't as chained up as the plan hinged on them to be. With Astapor and Yunkai fallen to the slavers again, we might also see the war of Slaver's Bay in the show, from which I expect some good action scenes toward the end of the season. The show has yet to feature dragons in full action on a battlefield, and what better occasion will they get than this?

Ramsay kiling Roose was... unexpected. I'd expected him to try, of course, but Roose always came across as the guy in control. The one who'd anticipate the hidden knife, and pacify Ramsay before he could threaten his person. Roose was always the kennelmaster, and Ramsay a dog on his leash. Ramsay might be evil, but never came across as particularly smart. I always thought Roose would kill Ramsay first. Then again, Roose did die awfully quickly to that single stab, so maybe he's just faking. A guy can dream, right? Or Ramsay had just got one of those insta-kill-knives the Sand Snakes used to kill Areo Hotah with a single prick. On the subject of baby-killing, it was obviously included for the shock value, but I think it'd be even more powerful if it was just implied. Walda going to meet lord Bolton, following Ramsay into a room, and then, as the door close behind them, Ramsay saying "I am lord Bolton". Not knowing how they met their end would be more powerful than the stock "releasing the hounds", but oh well. Gotta be explicit, I guess, lest there be a hundred theories about how they both survive and will come back for revenge.

And Theon is leaving Sansa. Going home, wherever that may be. Is Winterfell home, will he go for Ramsay and go Ironborn on his ass? Or will he head to the Iron Islands, encounter Euron, and... somethingsomething? I expect there to be more in store for Theon, some way or another.

Arya's blind stickfighting had improved noticeably since last time, but I still think it feels "rushed" to send her on already. On one hand, she clearly haven't mastered the whole blindness thing. On the other, nice to see them not drag her story out too much. Another scene with her as a blind beggar fighting the waif would have felt too much, even if she had improved to the point of holding her own.

Lastly, it was interesting to see Melisandre so broken. Just giving up, with no sense of direction or belief in herself. Davos called her to action one last time, and I thought it was fun seeing Tormund go "screw this, I'm outta here". Then Melisandre gives up too (I'd like to see what she does next. Go have a drink with Tormund?), and Davos decides this probably wasn't the best plan after all either. Seems like Melisandre could be a pretty good hairdresser, if that red-priestess-thing isn't working out in the long run.

 

As for Jon not warging Ghost as he was expected to... I actually think he did. When warging, the animal instincts are still dominant, so Ghost would still be acting like a direwolf with Jon inside his head. Then Jon left his head, Ghost lost consciousness - Jon's, and it took a while for Ghost to fully get back in charge over his body. Hence why he was so sleepy all of a sudden - for a short while, nobody was in control. Subtle, but I like it.

 

Overall, I'd give the episode a 3/3. I enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next!

Edited by Kyll.Ing.
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Is this the first time anyone has name dropped the Manderlys? Sorry if this has been talked about already - I have not read all 19 complain-y pages yet!

Also in show world, what if Tristane=Aegon

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Thoughts while watching:

 - Actually, before I get into this episode, a holdover thought from last week. I saw 6x01 take a lot of flak for Jon's "InstaFriends," and how such InstaFriends clearly prove that Pyp and Grenn should have stayed alive after Season 4. Now, I'll go after the show when it deserves it (and it's deserved it more often that not the past two seasons), but I think this is unfair. With Donal Noyle non-existant in the show, the Battle for the Wall is left with no meaningful (to the audience) consequences on the NW side if you stick strictly to the books. And Grenn's final moments were pretty spectacular. If you want to argue that one of them should have survived, and given Edd someone to stand with who we know this season, then that's fair. But I don't see what's so offensive about the InstaFriends. Jon didn't get elected Lord Commander just by the votes of his friends that we've seen. There would be other brothers who were loyal to Jon.

That little rant out of the way...

- Loved everything with Bran. Loved the flashback, loved Ned using a line we've heard from Jon, loved Lyanna's introduction, loved how well young Hodor was cast, loved the new-and-improved design for the Children (not what I picture from the books, but much better than before)...the only thing I didn't love was the pointless coda with Meera. "He'll need you...but not right now, so this whole scene was a Nothing Scene." Too many of those in this show.

- Tyrion and the dragons: excellent. Great use of lines from the book (been a while since we've heard any of those), and the council meeting with Mis/Grey was pretty painless.

- Not a bad scene with Arya either. Still can't stand that actress, though.

- "The Umbers and the Manderlys belong to us...."

http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6pk95rQTC1ratb45o1_500.gif

No, really, why? Of all the Houses you could have picked, you pick the two where this new-found loyalty is in greatest contradiction to their book counterparts. You don't even bother throwing in the hostages held at the Twins as a motive. There are a lot of pointless changes made in this show, but this is just dumb. In more ways than one, as others have explained very well. If you watch the "Inside the Episode," you'll see Benioff try and argue that the Bolton's hold on the North is "precarious." Mr. Benioff - you seem like the more pleasant of the Ds, but you saying that in an ItE segment is no substitute for, y'know, showing it on screen, and you had plenty of material that could've shown it that you threw out the window.

- Yeah...not a whole of sense behind Brienne leaving a certain name out.

- The KL Whitewashing Lannister Party continues, and I continue to be annoyed. At least there was no Dorne.

- Considering how much I hate them in the books, I was reasonably interested in the Ironborn plot, and in Theon's decision to return there. Still not sure why they had to delay this so long; would've been more interesting and relevant than a lot of the useless padding they stuffed Seasons 4 and 5 with.

- The way the mutiny was put down...kind of comic, how easy it was. And an odd feat of restraint from the wildlings. Not my favorite.

- Living in Ireland for graduate school, I had the big comeback spoiled for me months ago. It's been hell not saying anything to my spoiler-free friends. Still loved the moment.

I do have to say, this episode had some of the best writing since Season 3 IMO. It also had possibly the dumbest thing they've done aside from Dorne. On balance, I feel better about where this season is going than I did last week, but I've done my best to avoid spoilers since the season premiere started looming over the horizon, so it may be that some of the leaked material floating around here portends things I won't like. We'll see.

Edited by Fisch
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58 minutes ago, Wun Up said:

Is this the first time anyone has name dropped the Manderlys? Sorry if this has been talked about already - I have not read all 19 complain-y pages yet!

Also in show world, what if Tristane=Aegon

Hmmmm good question.  I cannot think of any time the Manderlys have been name dropped in the show so far. There was definitely their sigil on a Northerner at the Red Wedding though. I am also pretty sure the White Habour has been mentioned a few times. I think you could be right though about it being the first name drop though. 

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5 hours ago, Imp Beyond the Wall said:

But Ned was with Stag Party Bob in the Vale not at Winterfell.  

Wasn't that Ned, Benjen, Lyanna and Brandon?

 

Side-wiskers make it seem more like a young Rodrik Cassel

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18 hours ago, Barty said:

makes sense that the whole North isnt retarded, though Roose hinted at the Manderlys too this episode. But isnt the whole reason Rickon goes to the Umbers that they could be trusted? And if they cant be trusted then what the f*ck have they been doing this whole time? Roose reached Winterfell ages ago. Walda got married, pregnant and had a baby - implying at least 9 months have passed. The Umbers in the meantime are just sitting around waiting to betray the Starks right when Roose Bolton dies. Brilliant ploy - lets join the Boltons right when their only leader with any brain is dead. 

I have a feeling they go to Winterfell to "pay their respects" for the loss of Roose Bolton, but with him out of the picture they feel it is the right time to show them they have a Stark in their possession. 

The Bastard's glowing grin will wither away quickly when he realizes how quickly the North has slipped from his grasp. 

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8 hours ago, Ded As Ned said:

Thank you! The show has blown past $10 million per episode, they're hiring established character actors such as Max Von Sydow and Ian McShane, and the book hipsters are acting as though Ramsay killing his father amounts to "budget cuts," as if Michael McElhatton is breaking the bank. It's really absurd. McElhatton has been very good -- hopefully his role will open up new opportunities, and he won't have to back to all the short film and voice acting work...

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3 hours ago, Fisch said:

Thoughts while watching:

 - Actually, before I get into this episode, a holdover thought from last week. I saw 6x01 take a lot of flak for Jon's "InstaFriends," and how such InstaFriends clearly prove that Pyp and Grenn should have stayed alive after Season 4. Now, I'll go after the show when it deserves it (and it's deserved it more often that not the past two seasons), but I think this is unfair. With Donal Noyle non-existant in the show, the Battle for the Wall is left with no meaningful (to the audience) consequences on the NW side if you stick strictly to the books. And Grenn's final moments were pretty spectacular. If you want to argue that one of them should have survived, and given Edd someone to stand with who we know this season, then that's fair. But I don't see what's so offensive about the InstaFriends. Jon didn't get elected Lord Commander just by the votes of his friends that we've seen. There would be other brothers who were loyal to Jon.

That little rant out of the way...

- Loved everything with Bran. Loved the flashback, loved Ned using a line we've heard from Jon, loved Lyanna's introduction, loved how well young Hodor was cast, loved the new-and-improved design for the Children (not what I picture from the books, but much better than before)...the only thing I didn't love was the pointless coda with Meera. "He'll need you...but not right now, so this whole scene was a Nothing Scene." Too many of those in this show.

- Tyrion and the dragons: excellent. Great use of lines from the book (been a while since we've heard any of those), and the council meeting with Mis/Grey was pretty painless.

- Not a bad scene with Arya either. Still can't stand that actress, though.

- "The Umbers and the Manderlys belong to us...."

http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6pk95rQTC1ratb45o1_500.gif

No, really, why? Of all the Houses you could have picked, you pick the two where this new-found loyalty is in greatest contradiction to their book counterparts. You don't even bother throwing in the hostages held at the Twins as a motive. There are a lot of pointless changes made in this show, but this is just dumb. In more ways than one, as others have explained very well. If you watch the "Inside the Episode," you'll see Benioff try and argue that the Bolton's hold on the North is "precarious." Mr. Benioff - you seem like the more pleasant of the Ds, but you saying that in an ItE segment is no substitute for, y'know, showing it on screen, and you had plenty of material that could've shown it that you threw out the window.

- Yeah...not a whole of sense behind Brienne leaving a certain name out.

- The KL Whitewashing Lannister Party continues, and I continue to be annoyed. At least there was no Dorne.

- Considering how much I hate them in the books, I was reasonably interested in the Ironborn plot, and in Theon's decision to return there. Still not sure why they had to delay this so long; would've been more interesting and relevant than a lot of the useless padding they stuffed Seasons 4 and 5 with.

- The way the mutiny was put down...kind of comic, how easy it was. And an odd feat of restraint from the wildlings. Not my favorite.

- Living in Ireland for graduate school, I had the big comeback spoiled for me months ago. It's been hell not saying anything to my spoiler-free friends. Still loved the moment.

I do have to say, this episode had some of the best writing since Season 3 IMO. It also had possibly the dumbest thing they've done aside from Dorne. On balance, I feel better about where this season is going than I did last week, but I've done my best to avoid spoilers since the season premiere started looming over the horizon, so it may be that some of the leaked material floating around here portends things I won't like. We'll see.

Isn't it fairly obvious that he mentioned the Manderlys and Umbers precisely because they will turn out not to actually support the Boltons, and especially Ramsey, by the end? I have almost no doubt based on that dialogue that we will get some version of the feigned allegiance by at least Manderly that is seen in the books. 

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Not if the Reddit spoilers for the end of the season are true and so far, 100% of all the Reddit spoilers for the season we've seen have proved true.

 

Yes, it's no surprise that this episode had some of the best writing since Season 3. It's called quoting GRRM's phrases from the book, in contrast to D/D's Emmy-winning  writing "skills." GRRM  has more talent in his pinky finger with the turn of a well-timed phrase then they will ever have. And funny, this is one of the rare episodes from GoT that Dave and Dan didn't write themselves, it was Dave Hill.

 

I've been waiting all year to hear such throwaway classics from even minor characters like GRRM's Dolorous Edd, "There's nothing like a cup of hot horse blood on a cold night. I like mine with a pinch of cinnamon sprinkled on top," (from Book 5, and there are dozens more where that came from), but D/D's Edd has forgotten he ever had a sense of humor, it seems. Funny, when he had on the first three seasons. And that is why the audience loves and cares about Edd. Surely it wouldn't cost anything more to include that in the scripts? But oh no, instead we have to invent ever newer and improved more grisly ways to kill people from showrunner favorites like Ramsey.(If Dave Hill invented Walda's execution method himself, I'll eat my keyboard.  It sure ain't in the book.)

 

 

Edited by Morna The Maid
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16 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Honestly, it's quite clear that the show is subsisting on nihilistic shock value at this point.

I'd have no problem with Ramsay killing Roose, except that:

1. This is Roose Bolton. Him letting his guard down like that is incomprehensible, especially when he knows what Ramsay is.

2. Ramsay isn't the brightest bulb, but a bastard murders his father in front of witnesses? Karstark Jr would have been better off knifing Ramsay in the back and claiming father and son killed each other. Why on earth would you follow a guy like that?

Ramsay as Villain!Sue is getting tiresome.

1. Roose let his guard down in the books when he signed his own death warrant by legitimizing Ramsay after he married. If Roose really knows what Ramsay is, why would he give him the Bolton name?

2. Ramsay murdered his father in front of two people in service to his family. The Maester is in service to the Lord of Winterfell. That's Ramsay now, no matter how he got the title. Karstark hates the Starks so he's probably thrilled Ramsay offed Roose, since Roose was dragging his feet about going after Theon and Sansa. 

Besides, everyone at Winterfell lives with, and serves the freakish Boltons. I don't think they'd be surprised, do you? Who are they going to tell? How are they going to get away from Winterfell to tell anyone? 

There must always be a giant psycho bag of dicks in ASOIAF. If not Ramsay, whom do you suggest? I mean, we need to meet the next übervillian before karma kicks Ramsay's ass, don't we?

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4 hours ago, Daendrew said:
9 hours ago, Imp Beyond the Wall said:

But Ned was with Stag Party Bob in the Vale not at Winterfell.  

Wasn't that Ned, Benjen, Lyanna and Brandon?

 

Side-wiskers make it seem more like a young Rodrik Cassel

Yea, that was Rodrik, Lyanna, Benjen and Ned.

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Well, where to begin.

Bran - Yay, he's back.  Now about his vision, it kind of felt like a long scene with the primary intent to reintroduce Lyanna for the casual show watchers.  The stuff about Hodor, my interpretation as to why they changed his name to Willas instead of Walder is the same reason Talisa is not named Jeyne.  The character is deviating to the point that it is no longer the same character, but then I always thought that Hodor was younger (although I have no evidence) and that he has always been like how he is now.  But then Old Nan (assuming that woman was Old Nan) looked quite young in the flashback too, she looked like she could have been Hodor's mother but we know she's more like his great grandmother.  It was kind of disappointing that Meera didn't remind the viewer about Jojen's death even though that is obviously what is troubling her.  It's been a whole season since we saw these guys they could've done more to remind us what had happened than just the scenes from last time.  But I guess I'm just being picky

Arya - So, I guess everyone was just getting bored seeing her blind and couldn't come up with any decent solution for that.  She learned nothing and accomplished nothing and she's still telling the same lie she always has and has never been convincing with.  But she's got places to go and people to be so 2 episodes was enough of that.  Never mind that she didn't even learn how to use her walking cane to help her walk.

Sansa - A couple of touching moments, though I'm not sure why Theon wants to go back to that hellhole known as the iron islands.  Not much to talk about here.

King's Landing - Cersei looked too good in mourning clothes, I thought they weren't supposed to suit her.  I'm not sure what would upset her more, Tommen forbidding her from attending Myrcella's funeral or Robert Strong trekking blood and urine into her room.  I guess this is what you get when your primary bodyguard is undead.  Jaime's standoff with High Sparrow clarified that the High Sparrow really is just another power hungry politician infesting King's Landing, sadly with Jaime being the way he is, there really wasn't anything that could be done at this point.  Luckily Jaime is no longer as rash as he once was.

Iron Islands - Do I have to touch on this?  Seems like the writers just wanted to include a plotline they hadn't yet used from the books to fill some time.  Not my favorite plotline from the books, and the show's variation of it does not look likely to change my mind.

Mereen - So Tyrion decides to fill Quentyn's shoes for a bit in order to release the dragons, but since it is Tyrion he escapes unharmed.  Guess he's just lucky that Viserion and Rhaegal are on a hunger strike until their mommy comes back.  Or at least I'm assuming those two dragons were Viserion and Rhaegal, they didn't look the correct color to me even taking into account the dim lighting.  The scene felt forced and the dragons didn't act very much like dragons.  I could forgive them for being so docile to trick Tyrion into releasing them from bondage but afterwards they should've made a mad dash for the exit and attempted to eat Varys on the way out.  Hopefully next time we see Mereen it is a smoking wasteland as the dragons have decided to grant the wish of so many of the fans.

Winterfell - Ramsay is evil, who knew.  I wonder how Walder Frey will respond to the murder of his granddaughter and great grandson.  Ramsay is an idiot, who knew.

Wall - Wow that was the most uneventful rescue, ever.  I guess the show is saving all of its fight scenes for the very end.  And Jon is back from the dead, so everyone's assumptions have been proven correct.  Though, could they possibly have made that resurrection scene a bit more clichéd?  Don't know why Davos wanted Jon resurrected so badly and I don't know when he became such bosom pals with Melisandre.  I guess they must have bonded over her murder of Shireen and complete abandonment of Stannis as soon as the going got tough.  Doesn't make much sense to me but if that is the way the show is going to spin it who am I to argue.

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8 hours ago, marsyao said:

What are you talking about, do you remember how NW brothers behaved in old bear's expedition  and their heroic defense of the war agains much worse Odd? and ... ok, whatever, I give up, I can stand this nonsense anymore

The great ranging? That was the old Bears expedition, I remember how they acted. They betrayed Lord Commander Mormont at Crasters Keep, murdered him and then went on to rape a bunch of innocent women. Jon would later arrive in search of Bran and avenge Mormont. Jon led the defense of the Wall on the show.

Thorne, and others disagreed with Jon letting the Wildlings south of the wall, even though there was logic in Jon's actions. Then they committed treason and murdered him. The Night's Watch does not exist to defend the world from the Wildlings, it exists to defend man from the Others and the long night. At no point on the show was letting the Wildlings south of the wall a crime.

It's indicated on the show that several members of the watch are not happy with Thorne, thus not being that motivated to follow his orders into battle against a superior force, spear headed by giant, while they have no wall between them. Edd a member of the Watch was leading the Wildlings, and the men of the watch were not directly attacked, the had a chance to surrender and they took it. Several of them should be happy, they are getting another chance.

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