I think Dany and her female advisor (Missandre ?) discussed the anatomy of the Unsullied, but I don’t remember the outcome.
Didn’t Varys have the guy who castrated him as a prisoner back in the Red Keep? What ever happened to him?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we saw Theon’s sister in the previously on segment, so my guess is that Theon either goes home or runs across his sister in some other place. I really don’t think he’s voluntarily going back to Ramsay.
I am at work and watching without sound… so I didn’t get any audio clues. My desire was unlikely anyway… but I think it would have been awesome.
I, too, wondered who stabbed whom. Roose and his son are both awful enough that it was equally plausible at that moment for either to be wielding the knife.
I like the cut of your jib, Senor.
Agreed on both counts. I hope we see a lot more flashbacks - was that young Ned Stark taking on some Targaryen men-at-arms in next week’s preview?
Agreed. He’s (mostly) paid his dues.
That was a keeper, all right.
Yeah, I think it’s gonna be kind of like a Westerosi “Avengers assemble!”
Disagreed. Not every plot has to lead somewhere. No one is safe, no one is necessarily going to play a key role in the Song of Ice and Fire, and narrative blind alleys are effective in keeping us on our toes. Many medieval leaders had great promise but died unexpectedly after all.
I don’t believe this is true. He told her that he would kill three people for her because she saved 3 people from the fire and the Red God was owed those deaths. That’s not the same as her getting training and then killing everyone she swore vengeance against.
Alright, so I can never remember (or keep track of the rules between different types of threads) – are we supposed to spoiler stuff from the next ep previews?
Anyway, re: “the gift” (spoilered in case), in the next ep preview:
[spoiler]there is a quick cut of some horses running/charging with banners displayed, directly followed by a large bearded dude telling Ramsey they’ve brought him a gift.
I freeze-framed the horses, and the banners are red with crossed chains and shackles, which the show wiki identifies as the Umber sigil. Large bearded dude also fits the description.
[/spoiler]
Rickon was headed to the Umbers, and this episode we heard Ramsey say the Karstarks, Umbers, and Manderlys were on their side…if the Umbers were to go to Winterfell with Rickon, I suspect it would end badly for Ramsay. The Karstarks might be pissed about their lord, but what indication do we have that the Umbers or Manderlys are doing anything other than rolling over because of the Bolton/Sansa marriage and as far as they know all the other Starks are gone. BUT, the North remembers, and the Umbers were shown (during the “King in the North” discussion) to be fiercely loyal to the Starks, as well as fearsome warriors (described by Osha, IIRC). If a surviving male Stark (with attendant Direwolf) were to show up on their doorstep, I suspect their allegiance to any Bolton wardenship of the North would seriously be in trouble. That said, I think they would probably know better than to try to call the banners and lay to siege Winterfell, when they could play the game a little bit and take control of things from inside.
And as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, even the Karstarks may be playing a game against the Boltons, seeming to support Ramsay in taking out Roose simply because Ramsay has more significant weaknesses that can be exploited. He’s brutal, but he doesn’t think nearly far enough ahead, or about how immediate gratification/success can actually make things more difficult down the line. The Karstarks might have an easy “in” in that they can point to the execution of Lord Karstark as a turning point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually feel that he screwed up and it was the King’s duty to act. I don’t know if it means anything, but even when complaining about that execution as why he’s supporting the Boltons, the current Karstark lord called him “King Robb.” Not that he would necessarily call him anything else, but considering he wasn’t really king except by the say-so of his supporters…I thought it was interesting to hear Karstark still call him that (with “Usurper,” “Mad King,” “Kingslayer,” and so on, usually non-supporters aren’t shy about unflattering nicknames for prominent people they don’t like). I watched the scene again to see if Roose seemed to take notice…if so he didn’t let on, but he did appear to be considering the statement pretty intently until they got interrupted, IIRC.
I like him in the role, although ISTR that his predecessor as the Three-Eyed Raven was somehow… more intertwined with the tree roots. (Max just looked like he’s standing behind a high wall). Can’t find a good picture online.
Excellent point.
Agreed on all that. The Drowned God certainly appears very Cthulhuesque (and GRRM is a known Lovecraft fan).
Yeah, that could be a very interesting plotline, although I suspect Ramsay’s going to have bigger headaches.
Hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Littlefinger fits that mold too (and where the hell is he, anyway…?).
Are the people loyal to the Boltons going to stand behind Ramsay? I doubt it. I think they know he’s nuts, plus he’s not an effective leader.
Ooh, i hope it’s a horse!
A very large wooden horse.
As far as we know the only ones loyal to the Boltons are the Karstarks and they seem to be fine with it.
I agree that he was not telling the entire truth, I suspect that becoming “Nameless” is a part of the training and may not quite take with Arya. Her story is to elaborate for her to become a nameless drone who cant go out and murderate her enemies.
I laughed.
Ecch. That name always makes me think of Scooby Doo.
Ordinarily I’d agree with you, but the Seven Kingdoms have just been through a very big, bloody, devastating civil war, and there might be no one left who’s capable of mounting a rebellion.
As noted above, it’s been so long since we saw him (and then, so briefly), the role could easily be recast.
I noticed the sideburns right away. That was a nice touch.
Did they change the composer for the music in season 6? Some of the new musical pieces (not established themes) are unlike anything the show has done before. The chase music as Sansa and Theon ran away during the first episode was stylistically unlike anything else in the series, and there were segments of this episode that were quite different too. Anyone else notice that?
A quick search seems to indicate that it’s still the same guy, Ramin Djawadi.
Oh, and I forgot, Wun-Wun totally one-upped Zombie Mountain in terms of big guy splattering dudes against wall-ship.
Sure, but theirs are not the stories we tell—not if their death doesn’t at least illustrate some point of tragedy, that is. The stories we tell are those that come to some sort of conclusion. That’s why we tell them: because life doesn’t offer conclusions, in general. And that’s what fictional stories are patterned after.
And after all, Jon Snow did come back to life.
It is not unfeasible for sich. If the aorta and/or inferior vena cava are ‘opened’, the person can quickly lose blood pressure/consciousness with actaul death pretty quick afterwards. There are other smaller, but sizable-enough vessels that ~similar results can be seen. Sometimes, if the hole(s) are small enough in the vessels, the bleeding can kind of get blocked/contained with pressure (tamponaded?) and slow the loss of consciousness somewhat. But rarely will a person be conscious enough to remain standing whne they lose that pressure in vessels the heart needs, so to speak.
I’ve been told that those trained to kill by knifing are going to try and move the blade around inside the torso somewhat to rip-up vital arteries/veins up to ensure quickest loss of pressure/consciousness and eventual actual death of stabee.
I have had an elderly person die right in front of me in a Minor Emergency Center from a 3.5cm aortic rupture. The ol’ fellow just dropped without any symptom other than a mild bellyache - and he gave no indication of distress at all. He had a weak heartbeat for maybe a minute afterwards during CPR, IIRC, but he was gone no matter. The autopsy report the family shared with us at Clinic let us know what had happened asa we were all pretty freaked on it. A knife wound could easily do exactly the same if the internal bleeeding is voluminous enough.
This is what I don’t get about Arya trying to join the faceless men… isn’t the whole point that she wants the power to kill her enemies? But to get that power, she has to give up on killing her enemies. Or is she just playing Jaquen still by claiming to be “no one”? And as soon as she passes all their tests, she plans to go finish off her hit list?
His sister featured prominently in the episode proper, so it’s only natural that she was part of the previously on recap.
Oh, gotcha. Yeah, that scene plays way different without sound.
When Jaqen originally tried to recruit her, he told her that she could go after everyone she wanted. But now apparently she has to give up that and her identity. One of them is a lie, or it’s inconsistent.
Becoming no one may be a necessary part of her training, and after she passes that test, she’s able to keep her identity in some way, and fulfill her wishes. Or maybe he lied to her in the first place because he gets a recruitment bonus.
The whole storyline seems pretty inconsistent. We’re lead to believe that they take the faces from people who die from their fountain, but when Jaqen kills himself with poison, she pulls off a series of faces, and one of them is her own. So clearly that’s not how the face thing works. And then the girl trainer becomes Jaqen without taking his face off the other guy, which suggests that the faces aren’t unique, discrete items either.
I think the story is using the mystical nature to just try to obscure having an internally consistent way of treating that storyline.
Didn’t Roose once tell Ramsay that when he learned he had a bastard son he originally planned to kill him?
No, it was much more of a Hallmark moment than that.
A woman he raped under her husband’s swinging corpse came back 9 months later with a baby she claimed was his. He almost killed them both for bothering him, but then he looked at the baby and realized it was his.