# Game of Thrones 4.10 "The Children" 6/15/14 \[no spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819 "2014-06-15T14:36:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/321 "2014-06-18T10:18:05Z")
> [@Onyerbike](#): > > Shakester reminds me about the umbers. Are they under the thumb of the boltons now, or have they gone rogue? Unknown, but my assumption would be that they’d be paying lip service to the Boltons for now, while being ready to turn on them if/when the north rises again. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/322 "2014-06-18T10:46:37Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Unknown, but my assumption would be that they’d be paying lip service to the Boltons for now, while being ready to turn on them if/when the north rises again. Makes a difference from the usual ‘The south will rise again’ doesn’t it? [http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-postpones-rising-again-for-yet-another-year,377/](http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-postpones-rising-again-for-yet-another-year,377/) ---
**Author:** ![Onyerbike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onyerbike/32/5402_2.png) [@Onyerbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onyerbike)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/323 "2014-06-18T12:57:11Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > while being ready to turn on them if/when the north rises again. The old gods willing. Who else needs killin’? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/324 "2014-06-18T14:42:54Z")
> [@Onyerbike](#): > > Clearly he would just off himself soon after she refused him with his own dagger, and that would or should have been obvious to Arya. I’d have to watch it again to be sure, but I think he lost his dagger in the fight with Brienne. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/325 "2014-06-18T16:13:52Z")
I wonder if we’re missing an obvious “what happens next”…Arya leaves…a little bit later Pod and Brienne find him. Brienne puts him down after trying to get a bit more information out of him. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/326 "2014-06-18T17:09:03Z")
Something that is being ignored in all this talk of Arya becoming a cold blooded killer (or whatever) is that she continues to show empathy and caring for the innocent. She’s happy to stick her sword through someone who helped kill her brother or Lommy, and clearly the Hound has committed any number of horrible crimes, but she on multiple occasions prevented, or attempted to prevent, the Hound from hurting innocent civilians. That’s why I think she’s still a sympathetic character. (She’s unquestionably still an ENTERTAINING character, but of course that’s not necessarily the same thing.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/327 "2014-06-18T17:30:24Z")
Just to keep this in perspective, I’m not saying she’s unsympathetic or expressing any kind of dislike of the character. She’s still one of my favorites on the show, but I’m still commenting on the path she is on and how her experiences have changed her. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/328 "2014-06-18T19:10:47Z")
I’m late to the party, as usual! Is anyone else wondering if Daenerys might just sort of “settle”? She seems less and less concerned with Westeros and more and more consumed by more local affairs. She’s learning there’s more to ruling than conquest, and that doing the right thing is rarely easy. She used to imagine a black and white war where bad people would die and good people would get what they deserve, followed by a just rule that everyone would thank her for. Maybe she’ll end up staying to rule over what she has already taken, maybe expanding a little, but giving up on the whole Queen of the Seven Kingdoms idea. Maybe she only exists, as a character, to supply dragons. I’m not too bothered by Arya. The harder and colder she gets, the less likable she becomes for me. But we will probably see Arya, Tyrion, Varys and Daenerys all on the same continent. I wonder what they could get up to together. Tyrion and Varys, and Arya and Daenerys could both make good teams. Ever since The Hound told Arya the story of how he got his burns, I’ve been half expecting, half hoping, that he would get to kill The Mountain. We left the previous episode with good reason to suspect The Mountain is dying. Turns out he’s not. Now we have good reason to suspect The Hound is. Will it turn out he’s not, too? He didn’t die on screen, and even for GoT it would be weird if we’re expected to just assume he has died of his injuries. The likely scenarios (if it were real) seem to be that he would die alone, or more likely, be found by Brienne and Podrick and killed mercifully (and yeah, it’s pretty clear that _would_ be mercy). But having a dying character show up for five minutes at the start of a new season, just to be finished off, would be a little strange, too. I don’t see how he could survive, but I’m certainly not writing him off yet. We don’t know much about the skeletons, do we? I had assumed the zombies at least needed some kind of flesh to hold them together, but now we see full-on skeletons walking about. Are they the same thing? I got the impression they were sort of specific to that little place around the Tree of Magicality; perhaps they’re the same thing but just turned up to 11 in that area for whatever reason (concentration of magic, or whatever), making walking skeletons possible where sinew would otherwise be required. As for the anti-magic views in this thread, I’ve assumed for a while that the story is, at least partly, about the resurgence of supernatural stuff in Westeros. We start in a world where dragons have been gone for a long time, White Walkers for even longer. The Targaryans had become weak and obviously not part dragon, literally or figuratively. The House of the Blue Lips was weak and unimpressive until recently. Now we suddenly have dragons and part dragons and White Walkers. Bran became magic, and other magic kids are showing up. The House of the Blue lips got powerful; they seemed to give the dragons the credit, but “correlation does not imply causation”; both events may have a common cause. Melisandre is introducing Stannis, a man disinclined to believe bullshit, to the importance of magic. In the first episode, when the Starks found the dire wolf pups, someone mentioned that you didn’t normally see them that far south. The wolves we see are very intelligent - is there a supernatural element to them, too? I thought it was significant, even if the idea was simply that it was meant to happen according to some silly fate which required the Starks to have wolves. Even giants are unexpected by those from south of The Wall. So I think this sort of thing is to be expected, but obviously few viewers are interested in seeing ordinary people become completely impotent compared to magic. > [@grude](#): > > So this elf girl throwing fireballs…I take it we now know the other player in the ice and fire title? Or does everyone still assume it is dragons. Since this is about a non-existent things, I’ll use a spoiler box. But it’s not really a spoiler - I’ve only seen the show and these are all details from previous episodes: Besides the dragons, we already have the Lord of Light whose followers seem to enjoy burning people, getting visions in fire and wielding flaming swords. We also know that burning corpses stops them becoming zombies, and Wildfire played an important role. I was wondering if it would show up again at The Wall, to be thrown at White Walkers. Fire is a convenient weapon - especially against ice monsters, presumably - so it may be that the “Fire” is more general than the “Ice”. Or perhaps only one is the real “Fire” and the rest are red herrings. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/329 "2014-06-18T19:32:41Z")
[Facebook Recap](http://happyplace.someecards.com/got-recap-season-4/if-game-of-thrones-took-place-entirely-on-facebook-the-season-4-finale/) ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/330 "2014-06-18T19:39:06Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Hmmm, that’s possible. I do recall the two dead Night Watchman they brought back from beyond the wall in season one, but maybe they somehow had been converted or “infected” before they were brought back. Don’t know if someone else has already answered this, but yes, they appeared to be already wights when they were picked up. Sam noted that they didn’t smell decayed even though they’d been out for a while. Presumably they stop decaying when they become wights, and their general condition depends on how decayed they were before they became wights. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/331 "2014-06-18T20:44:27Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Since this is about a non-existent things, I’ll use a spoiler box. But it’s not really a spoiler - I’ve only seen the show and these are all details from previous episodes: > > Besides the dragons, we already have the Lord of Light whose followers seem to enjoy burning people, getting visions in fire and wielding flaming swords. We also know that burning corpses stops them becoming zombies, and Wildfire played an important role. I was wondering if it would show up again at The Wall, to be thrown at White Walkers. Fire is a convenient weapon - especially against ice monsters, presumably - so it may be that the “Fire” is more general than the “Ice”. Or perhaps only one is the real “Fire” and the rest are red herrings. Can we not use spoiler boxes for things that aren’t spoilers? ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/332 "2014-06-18T21:10:32Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Can we not use spoiler boxes for things that aren’t spoilers? I thought I explained it well enough. ETA: Well it was a little cryptic, I suppose. The point was that, if we’re being strict about the books not existing rule, speculation about the meaning of the title shouldn’t be happening here. But we do see that title in the actual episodes. I thought I’d err on the side of caution. ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/333 "2014-06-18T21:49:21Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > [Facebook Recap](http://happyplace.someecards.com/got-recap-season-4/if-game-of-thrones-took-place-entirely-on-facebook-the-season-4-finale/) God, these are just the best. “Arya Stark has left the group Westeros Is The Besteros.” ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/334 "2014-06-18T22:17:52Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#): > > 😕 Is it really so hard to understand “NO SPOILERS - THE BOOKS DON’T EXIST IN THIS THREAD” - is it really? There’s another thread for that. To what are you referring? I haven’t read the books. Are you claiming that I accidentally came up with something that’s actually in the books? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/335 "2014-06-18T23:02:19Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > To what are you referring? I haven’t read the books. Are you claiming that I accidentally came up with something that’s actually in the books? Even as a book reader i have no idea what that was about. ---
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/336 "2014-06-18T23:24:36Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Is anyone else wondering if Daenerys might just sort of “settle”? She seems less and less concerned with Westeros and more and more consumed by more local affairs. She’s learning there’s more to ruling than conquest, and that doing the right thing is rarely easy. She used to imagine a black and white war where bad people would die and good people would get what they deserve, followed by a just rule that everyone would thank her for. Maybe she’ll end up staying to rule over what she has already taken, maybe expanding a little, but giving up on the whole Queen of the Seven Kingdoms idea. Maybe she only exists, as a character, to supply dragons. I was just thinking that she needs allies. As the “last” Targareyan, she doesn’t have the hoardes of uncles, cousins and nephews the other big families have that she can install as lords in each place she conquers. So should she marry into a big family of good politicians? Who might fit the bill here - the Tyrells? She’s got plenty of soldiers, Unsullied and freed slaves alike, but now that Jorah’s gone, precious few advisors, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/337 "2014-06-18T23:27:16Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Even as a book reader i have no idea what that was about. Well, that makes me feel a bit better; it was really confusing. Perhaps it was just free-floating anguish and general misery about this having been the end of the season, that manifested in a random ALLCAPS accusation. \*WORLD YOU WILL PAY FOR MY HAVING TO WAIT!!!1!!!-\*style of thing, maybe. No doubt many are feeling rather bereft. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/338 "2014-06-18T23:32:33Z")
I think it was the repeated references to the series as “Song” (i.e. A Song of Ice and Fire - the books) and talk of George R R Martin, rather than the show itself and its writers. I don’t think the post did any harm, but perhaps **SeaDragonTattoo** , understandably, avoided reading too much of the post in case it _did_ contain spoilers. It is easy to post accidental spoilers by leaving more clues than you realize, and I suppose that’s why the rule doesn’t say “do not post spoilers” but tells you to pretend the books do not exist _at all_. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/339 "2014-06-19T00:11:10Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > To what are you referring? I haven’t read the books. Are you claiming that I accidentally came up with something that’s actually in the books? Look at what was quoted: > [@](#): > > Obviously the point I’m making with this ‘Wildlings don’t need the tunnel’ line of argument is that it’s a bit of a plot hole. Given that the Song world is roughly based on the European map, it’s like saying that no one could have gotten from Scotland into England by boat…which is clearly absurd. > > Yes, yes,\*\* Martin\*\* may have added fancy dangers to his map that don’t exist on the real British Isles map, but \*\*he (apparently) hasn’t been all that specific about reasons that the coastline is not a viable way to travel. \*\*(Having Stannis’ huge army land there certainly undercuts the ‘it’s too treacherous’ claim, anyway.) > > Of course the Song fantasy world doesn’t have to be 100% internally consistent in order for the story set there to be interesting. But for me there are quite a few examples of\*\* ‘the author didn’t really think this through’ \*\*that stand out. By contrast, Philip Pullman’s fantasy world (in the His Dark Materials trilogy) is far more carefully worked out. (The same is true for Middle Earth, I believe, but I haven’t read those books for quite a while so am not sure if the claim is as good, there.) (my bold) It’s not a huge deal, but you did reference the books a few times. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819/340 "2014-06-19T00:33:48Z")
So far as I am concerned, he’s the creator of the TV show as well. So I read it in that context [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-4-10-the-children-6-15-14-no-spoilers/690819.md?page=18)