I’m no expert, but that was my understanding as well.
Agreed. There’s a big black hole between scenes.
So, Danny is going to marry the “Open the Fighting Pits” guy. I assume that will be a marriage of state, and not one that is going to produce heirs…
I don’t get how people can say that nothing happened in this episode. The pieces are starting to move.
Stannis is marching on Winterfell. Will he be able to take it? Will Sansa escape? Will Reek stay Reek, or revert to Theon and help Sansa? Will Brienne come to the rescue?
Dany is making a move to solidify her hold on the cities that she conquered. Are the Dragons past their unruly stage, ready to listen to mother again? Will she be able to raise a large enough army to finally march on Westeros? What, if any, role will Tyrion play in her return?
Jon Snow has made his decision to ally with the Wildings. The Night’s Watch hates this idea, but it seems to be the only way to fully man the Wall with the Army of the Dead approaching. When Jon gets back, what will await him? Most of the Watch are murderers and rapists. Will the inmates take over the asylum before he gets back? Will he be able to rally the Wildlings?
I can’t wait until next week, even if it will heap even more questions onto the pile.
The show is a metaphor for the Cold War and the subsequent War on Terrorism. First we had the ever-present danger of Soviet attack and now we have the ever-present danger of Islamic terrorist attacks.
No, you’re confusing two different scenes. The very first scene, with the Night’s Watch guys getting ambushed by Wights and White Walkers, was beyond the Wall, in Wildling territory.
The later scene, with the direwolf pups, was in the area of Winterfell, well south of the Wall.
How long has it been since Samwell and Gilly ran off from her father’s house? Shouldn’t Gilly’s baby be a toddler by now? She still has it bundled up like it’s only 2-3 months old.
Pretty sure she can’t produce any heirs even if she wanted too. So… old Valyria, pretty much a given it was taken out by a volcano right? smoking seas, Tyrion mentioning blackened skies, etc.
Congratulations to Hizdahr zo Loraq on the recent marriage announcement. Those are intense step kids, good luck.
My assumption was that they came out of the boat upstream of where the river (channel, estuary, canal) emptied into a lake or sea. Anyone know Westeros geography well enough to say if Valyria is at the confluence of a river and something else.
Valyria is in Essos, not Westeros.
ETA: The ruins of Valyria are islands, the remains of what used to be a peninsula.
best line was to Roose from his son : How did you find it?
Argh, so Jorah the Explorer is on borrowed time now. I really like him as a character, so that totally sucks. Also, I can’t see him continuing his trip to Mereen now. He loves Danaerys completely, he would never endanger her and her people by bringing in a highly infectious, lethal disease with him. My guess is he keeps Tyrion safe as long as possible on the way to Mereen and then runs off or sacrifices himself shortly before they arrive. Based on what we know about Stannis’ efforts to cure his daughter (Shireen?), Jorah probably has at least a few weeks, quite possibly months.
I still don’t get why greyscale victims aren’t just shot through the heart with a crossbow and then burned. Yes it’s cruel, but there’s at least a good reason for it, and it’s not any more cruel than a hundred things that happen all over Westoros on any given day for far worse reasons. Why would anyone want to maintain a natural reservoir of greyscale by exiling the infected if the prognosis is virtually guaranteed madness, death, and extreme contagiousness? I get that it’s basically supercharged leprosy, but it still seems stupid to me.
Overall I liked this episode. It did feel a little slower than the others, but I agree that it’s mostly setup. Very interested to see how this season goes. Can’t wait for Tyrion and Varys to get to Mereen.
Out of curiosity, what do you consider to not be a slow episode? This slow movement of political pieces is kind of the show’s bread and butter. Is every episode a snore-fest to you except for the ninth of each season?
Or is it more in comparison to last season, for example, where we had Jeoffrey’s very awkward wedding and subsequent poisoning, Lysa’s murder, Tyrion’s trial and Oberyn’s death, stuff like that?
I’m talking about the (human) bodies, not the wolf pups.
There were no human bodies in the scene with the direwolf pups. That’s my point; people seem to be conflating the two different scenes. Ned and his family were never anywhere near the place where the Night’s Watch men were ambushed. The sole survivor was later captured and executed by Ned, days later and on the other side of the wall. Then, after that, the Starks find the dead mother direwolf and her litter. No dead humans there at all.
Totally agree. I was talking about the scene north of the wall with the bodies and the Night’s Watchmen, in which no Starks were involved, and there were no direwolf pups.
The bunch of bodies were found by the Night’s Watch guy; the one Ned decapitated as a deserter.
So that’s what Stannis said? “Fewer?” I rewound it twice to hear what he said because I couldn’t make it out. I thought he said “Futile” in response to the negative reaction Jon was given on his proposal to allow the wildlings to join them. A condescending “Fewer” makes sense, though; not to mention being funny.
A “No nothing happened” episode. Interesting. not.
I always take these slow episodes as showing the GRRM is getting too involved in the writing.
They succeeded- as well as slow moving and boring. yawn.
I’m really enjoying this season – I’m not sure if there’s a single storyline that I’m not interested in, unlike some past seasons in which the Wall stories were boring, or Dany’s story was plodding.
Right, sorry - we were saying the same thing all along. 
I thought he said “Fear.” “Fewer” is funnier.