Is anyone else watching After The Thrones? It’s an analysis of each episode by some Throne nerds. It just started for this season. I find it entertaining and enlightening. I’ve never seen Talking Dead but I imagine it’s along the same lines.
I am. I watched the two of them on Grantland last year. They were fairly critical of the midpart of the show, and I wonder if that’ll be lost now that they’re HBO employees.
So Theon said he’s going home. I assumed that meant Pyke, but he did grow up in Winterfell. Anyone thing that’s a possibility?
Ugh. I hated those guys.
I originally thought Pike but the scene where Ramsay’s man says “I got a nice surprise for you” to a smiling Ramsay. . …
Yeah I might have been conflating some details but I was sure there was a scene of those two snapping at her. I remember thinking at the time they were more feral than the one who is free, not less.
ETA: Regarding a character committing suicide: Stannis’ wife did so last season.
Really? This is the first I’ve heard that Han Solo dies, anywhere.
Ramsay’s a good attack dog, but there’s no there’s no way he doesn’t go down in flames & take House Bolton with him.
Yeah, I was expecting Asha to come out afterward & greet he uncle.
I find it unbelievable that anyone from the royal family even set foot in the Great Sept. Yes, it may be the traditional place for royal funerals, but they could just lay Myrcella out in the Great Hall of the Red Keep and dare the High Sparrow to show up (he’s way too smart to do that though).
I can’t be the only one who was expecting him to eat his baby brother.
I’m still hoping he lives long enough to see Sansa installed as Wardress of the North, and then have her honor both her birth & marital families customs at the same time. 
I’m not surprised Asha’s going to have a hard time succeeding her father. The Iron Born never seemed like the type to follow a man just because of who his father was, let alone follow a woman on the same basis. She’ll have to take power for herself or she’ll end dead or pregnant at her uncle’s hands.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. 
Logically if Jon Dow is undead the cold won’t effect him & he’ll have no need for clothing. Don’t question my logic!
I was waiting for him to ask the new Lord Bolton if he should include the part about Lady Bolton dying in childbirth in the letters.
It’s not live like Talking Dead, and there’s no studio audience, but I’ve found it entertaining.
Who’s Asha? If you mean Theon’s sister, isn’t her name Yara?
Yes, he means Yara. Let us speak no more of it.
Looked and sounded the same to me.
From various interviews, the backstory on Melisandre’s powers of illusion is that……she’s around 400 years old, and she’s been using illusion the whole time.
Really? I would have thought that the Old Gods were animism, the Seven has parallels to pantheistic religions where there were different Gods for different aspects of life, and the Lord of Light always seemed to me to be a direct allusion to Christianity. It’s the monotheistic religion of ‘light’, complete with resurrection powers. I have heard Christians in the past describe God as “The Lord of Light” as compared to Satan, the King of Darkness.
Have we seen any examples of the power of the Seven? We know the old gods exist(ed), and have seen their power. We’ve seen the power of the faceless men, and of the Lord of Light. But I can’t recall ever seeing a clue that the ‘Seven’ exist. Did I miss it? Or are we supposed to believe that they are false Gods?
And now you’ve been exposed to the meme. It’s caught up with you, or you with it.
I read an article somewhere that the Seven are intended to portray Catholicism, but in polytheistic (heptatheistic?) form.
It’s my personal view that Martin has no interest in literally paralleling real religions.
That is, he wouldn’t be literally be bringing Christianity-by-another-name into his world (as opposed to Tolkien or Lewis).
The religions really are fictional, but they illustrate some of the dynamics that real religions introduce into society and they play certain societal roles similar to how real religions have affected real history.
So, the Old Gods are like pre-Christian European pagan religions, the Faith of the Seven is like institutional Christianity, the sparrows are like Lutherans, or Methodists, or Calvinists, or Puritans (some kind of popular reformist movement), and the God of Light is a foreign monotheistic proselytizing religion, with elements of Millennialist Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism.
I am not really sure how to classify the Faith of the Drowned God. The Faceless God is a kind of death cult.
It seems to me that many kinds of religions exist in this world, especially in Essos, which seems to have more variety.
Seems to me to have some similarities to Odin portrayed as the hanged god. Also makes sense since the Iron born are basically viking raiders who “do not sow”.
Makes sense. I didn’t know about the hanged god so I didn’t see the direct parallel to Norse religion. I didn’t want to draw that line solely because they are raiders.
I understand that, I’m just wondering if this totally ludicrous if it can never happen in real life, or if it is borderline possible, if, for example, being stabbed in the abdomen puts your body in a state of shock and you can’t move.
I know movies and TV are not realistic, I’m just wondering how unrealistic it is to be stabbed and just stand there and die
I’m not a doctor, but I can’t imagine you’d bleed out that fast. Even with 1865 medical technology Abraham Lincoln managed to survive several,hours with a really big bullet fired point blank into the back of his head, and there were people who survived for hours after a bayoneting. If you had experience you could probably TELL that a stab wound is mortal almost immediately bit I seriously doubt you’d drop dead of one like you would from a cut throat.
Just my WAG.
You’re only going to die instantly if stabbed through the heart. Even being stabbed through the lungs is going to cause a slow lingering death. Stabbed in the intestines, hours to die. In reality Roose would have been able to call for help, presumably had his guards dispatch Ramsay and then he may or may not have died much later from infection / blood loss.
Would have been more in character to show Ramsay stabbing Roose repeatedly and desecrating / mutilating the body rather than the single blow.
I think in real dagger-weilding societies they’d know to go for the heart. I doubt you’ll be putting up much of a fight with an eight inch blade through your aortic valve.
The abdomen thing just seems like dramatic license. Gives the actor enough time to look at the wound and the blood on their hands with a confused face before they die.
I thought he stabbed him under the ribcage, with an upward thrust to reach the heart. Sometimes with this method you’ll see the stabber not just stab, but then push hard on the hilt to drive the blade up as far as possible.
I have no idea if it’s a valid technique. It’s been ages since I had to stab a traitor.