But High Sparrow is no fool, he knows what Cersai’s like. I wonder why he let her go back to the Red Keep …
Because he wants a confrontation with the Lannisters. He is betting King’s Landing will erupt in open revolt if Cersei retaliates.
things that are the same now as they were at the start of season 5:
Lannisters still control Iron Throne (although they have issues with the Sparrows )
Dany still in Essos
Boltons still control Winterfell.
Arya still trying to figure out her future
Sansa still on the run
Night’s Watch still way undermanned
Winter is still on the way along with wights and White Walkers
At this point if I earn billions of dollars somehow I will throw money at everyone involved with this show so that the very last shot is of Ser Pounce on the throne - roll series credits.
Am I naive to think that he’s actually just a pious man who tries to do what he thinks is right and figures the gods will do what they will? Didn’t Cersei pick him precisely because he was non-political, non-ambitious? Because he was a true believer?
I don’t think he seeks a confrontation so much as he accepts a confrontation could happen and figures the gods will side with the righteous against the evil.
At this point, anyone from Samwell Tarly to Tyrion to Baelish to Bran could end up on the Iron Throne.
The only thing I’m willing to predict with certainty is that if the point of the story is for there to be a winner, then it will be someone who has been with us from the beginning. Some of these story arcs have shown characters experience tremendous growth and I’d have to think it’s going somewhere.
He’s only MOSTLY dead!
(Sheesh, five pages of discussion on whether or not a character in a medieval fantasy series is really dead, and no one makes a Princess Bride joke? I despair of the younger generation, I really do…)
This. I thought it was quite beautiful, them reuniting to escape Ramsey’s torture the only way possible (and a way that had been denied to them until this moment): death. After all the brutality and suffering, that’s all they had left to regain their independence. This was probably the most pure act Sansa’s ever taken. And definitely Theon’s redemption.
I figure, if there’s only two seasons left, they’re cutting some dead weight off the plot. It’s endgame time.
Brienne killing Stannis was also quite beautiful. I was always on team Renly.
The best of all was the long, slow, painful death of Meryn.
This episode was extremely satisfying.
For all the corpses, Game of Thrones now has more likable characters left than at any point previous.
Likable people: Brienne, Jaime, Ser Onion, Margery, Olenna, Loras, Arya, Podrick, Dany, Tyrion, Varys, Grey Worm, Missandei, Daario, Jorah (can anyone believe Jorah survived this season?), Jaqen H’ghar, Bronn, Bran, Sam.
Villains left: Roose, Ramsey, Littlefinger, Cersei, Melissandre, High Sparrow (dude’s a dick).
I eagerly await more death.
I don’t know how anyone thought Theon and Sansa were committing suicide. It did look a little high but onto the thick, freshly-fallen snow one would expect some injuries but fatalities? No way. That was an escape scene and in no way was meant to convey anything other than that.
I knew Arya was in trouble when she revealed who she was to Meryn. She is NOT ready to be no one. What Arya has yet to figure out is that “there is no spoon.”
There’s no Jaquen. Everyone in the cult is interchangeable. There could have been dozens of Jaquens that she interacted with and had no idea overall that they were any different. There’s no ultimate identity of any of them. You’ve become a “mush” of different identities until you’re nobody.
To me it referred to their golden hair, as opposed to the Baratheon black hair.
I’m pissed we didn’t get to see that too, but there’s always next season. Hopefully the High Sparrow is forced to acquit them through gritted teeth, and Cersei has to watch a fully clothed as Margaery get escorted by an honour guard of Goldcloaks to the Red Keep.
Well as far as she knows Jaime is still in Dorne (or he was killed trying to rescue Myrcella), she wouldn’t expect Kevan to support her, and Tommen seeing her like that would only make it worse for her.
That, and I imagine the Sparrows guarding were under orders to kill her at the first sign of a rescue attempt (& this would have been made clear to the Small Council).
Tommen is still legally head of house Baratheon, and heir to whatever lands they had.
She very strategically confessed to just enough to avoid being killed and/or invaliding Tommen’s claim to the Iron Throne.
As much of an evil cunt Cersei is I agreed that was hard to watch (at the same time she deserves worse).
Yes, the High Sparrow made it quite clear that she’s still going to be charged for incest and treason.
When Cersei asked how Loras and Margaery he specifically said they would be tried by judges of the Faith (himself & six other septons & septas) like in ancient times. It’s not clear that they were giving a choice of trial by combat (something I could see Loras insisting on).
Unlike his niece Kevan isn’t stupid enough to get anywhere near the High Sparrow without his own army. Ditto for Oleanna (or any other power player).
Trial by combat could be some older pre-Faith custom that they just punt their stamp on and the Sparrows could denounce it just like modern Christian fundamentalist reject stuff superficially Christian, but with pagan origins.
Rampant Jon Snow speculation: Is Jon Snow Actually Dead On 'Game Of Thrones'? Here Are The Theories | HuffPost Entertainment
Interesting… I did think that the loooong state between Jon and the leader of the White Walkers was going somewhere. Would be odd for all of that to be pointless.
This is the Faith Militant we’re talking about here. They’re all about the bloodshed.
I mentioned it upthread, but now with Zombie-Mountain as a fully instated member of the Kingsguard, CleganeBowl 2016 is inevitable fact (as acting Queen Regent, Cersei is required to choose her champion from among the Kingsguard, and although Sandor was presumed to be left for dead, since we didn’t see him actually die on-camera we know in GoT world that means he’s probably not dead).
Sandor always held a grudge against his brother (he burned his face, after all) and yet we’ve never seen the two of them together. This is obviously the groundwork for the fraternal showdown of house Clegane.
You mean apart from the big scene in season one where the Mountain (Mk1) was jousting with Loras and the Hound jumped in to fight off his brother?
This scene here?
Oh and I just recently discovered this but there’s an entire subreddit for /r/cleganebowl/ and they seem to be… very excited after this last episode, to put it mildly.
Sorry, totally forgot about that but yeah… they still need to fight to the death. 
Kit says he is not coming back for season six, I would allow filming in 6 just for back story purposes, but officially dead. He never said anything about not coming back for season 7.
Declan
okay but, since the plotlines that made it relevant in the books (so far) have been left out of the show, why even bother introducing the element of Thoros of Myr being able to resurrect Beric? Why show him explaining it to Melisandre? Since the showrunners have probably known about the Ides of the Watch plot point for a long time, all of that seems like great big giant foreshadowing that resurrection is going to come into play in a much bigger way later.
The fact that they sent Melisandre off to Castle Black at the right moment seals it for me. She’s a little off her game right now, but, this was the reason we saw her cozy up to Jon Snow earlier in the season - if Stannis ain’t “the one”, then maybe Jon is. Otherwise why was that scene and the hinting he was special even included?
Honestly, the story writing is worse off if Jon isn’t resurrected.
isn’t it inevitable that the whitewalkers would overrun the wall? wildings or no, isn’t it kind of anti-climatic/optimistic for this show that they would be stopped before they’ve made a sizeable impact on Westeros main? i’m trying to picture the whitewalkers dealt with and the people of King’s Landing still believing them to be a myth. the dragons aren’t going to circle around or skip Westeros to face the whitewalkers.