Yeah, I pointed out the wildfire - it’s not a “spoiler”. Since it was juxtaposed with shots of the Mad King shouting “Burn them all!” and we know how fond he was of wildfire, it was probably just his pyromancers using it. But there’s some possibility it could be a future event.
No it isn’t. I just watched the end of the Red Wedding to confirm what I thought: there’s no shot of hands like the one in Bran’s vision, and Robb is not wearing a wrist guard (or any other armour) in that scene, just normal shirtsleeves.
The wrist guard does, however, match the one young Nedd is wearing in the Tower of Joy scene.
…except we know they didn’t use it when the Mad King ordered it, and we know the Wildfire containment dungeon still exists because we saw it shortly before the battle of the Blackwater. Therefore, it can only be a future event.
ETA: It’s definitely the same place we saw Tyrion visit.
I stand corrected. Rewatching it now, it’s easy to see how I conflated that memory. Lots of (quick) shots of his bloody hand on her belly, but not one has his palm up or is shot from above. (Also, she’s wearing a different dress, I think.)
Not following your logic at all - because it’s an area that exists in the present, the vision we saw must be the future? They may have refused to use the wildfire on one particular occasion, but the Mad King used wildfire all the time. That’s kind of what he’s known for, and why he’s called the Mad King.
Showing it right alongside him saying “Burn them all!”, and the pyromancers preparing it, pretty clearly makes it look like this is a vision of the past (plus the fact that all his other visions have been the past). Like I said, your guess might be a possibility, but it’s not the most likely explanation. And very far from being a foregone conclusion. Although I don’t doubt that we’ll see wildfire again at some point simply because it’s a really cool visual effect.
I’ve already explained it. We KNOW that the place where they store the wildfire hasn’t exploded yet because we SAW it when Tyrion & Bronn visited it while planning the Battle of Blackwater.
We also know that it hasn’t exploded since then because if King’s Landing had suffered a massive explosion it would be, you know, freaking obvious.
Therefore, it can only be in the future. It’s not a use of Wildfire, it’s Wildfire destroying the place where they store the Wildfire, which is obviously part of King’s Landing.
Your explanation didn’t make any sense though and now I see it’s because you’re apparently making assumptions that the entire place would have been “destroyed” based on that shot. But what we see is the wildfire is going off inside of a massive stone tunnel, and the only thing that’s exploding there are the wooden kegs and racks used to store it. No reason to think it would irreparably bring down the entire castle and/or city. Plus this is long in the past, so even if there was structural damage it could have been repaired.
In fact, now that you mention it, I think when Tyrion was talking about the history of wildfire, he even explained that there had been some sort of accident that caused them to stop making and storing it there, did he not? I could be mis-remembering that, but now it would be worth checking if anyone can find that scene.
This also brings up another question: has Bran even demonstrated an ability to see into the future before? So far we have only seen visions of the past. The montage also has that shot of a smoking King’s Landing with an apparent dragon shadow over it, but that could be the past as well when Aegon was conquering it. If it is the future though, that has important implications and expands the scope of Bran’s abilities considerably.
So Sam’s dad is obviously an asshole, but could Sam have proven himself more meek in the way he simply stood and took the abuse? The way he just sniveled and refused to stand up for himself at all certainly would make his father think he never grew a pair. He had every chance to show a spine, but he never hinted at it.
And making the decision to leave wasn’t even backbone - it was a petty, childish rebellion. He made an irresponsible decision to remove Gilly and her kid from the protection of his mother and father with no plan for what to do with her, and he snuck out in the middle of the night with his family’s heirloom.
His father is absolutely an abusive asshole who is in no way a good guy here, but he’d be fully justified in hunting down and killing Sam at this point to get his sword back. He offered protection for someone he despised for Sam’s sake, and Sam repaid him by stealing his most valuable possession.
I’m not going to go as far as to say I’m rooting for Randyll to kill Sam, but it would be justifiable.
Agreed. The asshole father’s disdain for Sam is fully justified in that Sam is exactly the person he thinks he is.
I mean, it’s not quite that simple in that his dad was probably a bad father and abusive and played a role in making Sam what he is.
But… yeah, the complete mess that Sam was when he came to Castle Black suggested his dad was probably right not to want to let him inherit his title and lands. And Sam’s behavior at the dinner table did nothing to show that he’s grown at all - he’s still the man his father forced to the Wall.
Which actually sort of doesn’t ring true - Sam stood up to an ass beating when some Night’s Watch tried to molest Gilly - he showed a lot of growth from the coward he was - but he showed none of that with his father. Maybe the subtext is more subtle here - he’s so afraid of his father specifically after a lifetime of abuse that he can’t even show courage the way he showed in the past towards his father. So it’s either out of character, or daddy issues trump all.
But in any case, despite his disgust, his father offered Gilly and her kid a home. I don’t know if the audience was supposed to root for Sam as he stole the sword, but I sure as fuck didn’t. Fine, you decide your dad is too big a dick and you want to bone out? That’s selfish if you don’t have a backup plan for Gilly and the kid, but fine. But stealing your family’s sword? That’s just petty.
Sam explained himself to Gilly later. He said that he wanted to stand up for her, but he didn’t want to risk antagonizing his father and costing Gilly and Little Sam their place at the house. Also, I think you’re right about Sam finding it hard to stand up to his father because of their history. When push came to shove, Sam faced down a White Walker and a Thenn, but he still can’t stand up to his father. There’s just too much history there, and I feel like that’s a realistic explanation even if Sam didn’t have Gilly and Son’s welfare to think about.
Presumably, Sam took Gilly and Little Sam with him because he believed that he couldn’t trust his father to look after them. Randyll claimed that he would, but Sam has every reason to assume that he was just saying that to get Sam to leave without a fuss. I’ll bet you dollars to dragons that Gilly and Little Sam would have been thrown out of the house (or killed in an “accident”) shortly after Sam left.
As for Sam stealing the sword, it seemed to me that it was because it’s Valeryan steel and Sam knows it’ll be needed in the wars to come. Sure, maybe it was a little petty, and I’m sure Sam enjoyed sticking his finger in Randyll’s eye. But it showed us that Sam has decided never to return home again, and that he’s resolved to combat the White Walker threat. Pissing off Randyll wouldn’t have been sufficient reason to do it in the first place, but maybe it was the icing on the cake.
Probably so, but he did (apparently) raise a perfectly acceptable son as well, sitting across from Sam at the table.
Now we know why Kings Landing peasant fashions are so drab – the Mad King gave the order to “Burn the mall!”
We don’t know that. Maybe he’s another asshole, like daddy. Maybe that’s what daddy considers a proper man. Or not. We don’t know.
Oh, no! The Eternally Score-and-One! The Crevasse!
Seriously. Motherfucker GAINED weight north of the Wall!
The pronouns have been inconsistent before so I don’t think that necessarily says anything, but I think her desire for killing Arya shows that it will be her whose face goes on the wall. Arya will kill the waif, Jaqen will be satisfied that a death has occurred, and Arya will leave for Westeros.
I am curious about their death cult though. It would make more sense to me if they were either ruthless mercenary assassins, or if they were religious fanatics who killed who their god wanted them to kill. It seems strange that they’re in the middle as religious fanatics who are also mercenaries and kill innocent people.
I agree, I think Sam would have stood up to his father but knew that probably would have resulted in Gilly being kicked out, and maybe little Sam too. But after the way that dinner went, and Randyll saying that Gilly would be put to work, Sam knew that Gilly could make one tiny mistake and be kicked out, or put to do dangerous work, or something bad happen to her.
I was guessing that the other son probably just naturally liked hunting and fighting, was naturally athletic and not fat, and wasn’t very interested in books, so Sam’s father wasn’t really abusive to him. While Sam is more bookish, meek, and non-athletic, and so his father was terrible to him trying to make him be a man, which just made Sam feel worse making it a terrible cycle. The other son could be a good guy or an asshole or somewhere in between.
Although Tommen “converting” and aligning himself with the Sparrows does not appear to be a terrible strategy. The Sparrows have the support of the common people and have become the de facto religion of King’s Landing. Really what was the alternative? Lannister and Tyrell troops kill thousands of Sparrows and their follows, probably starting an insurgency that makes Mereen look the Tournament of the Hand.
By the way, you all do realize that Tommen will be the “champion” who will face off against Mountain 2.0, right? It’s not a spoiler as it’s just a guess, but it’s an educated one based off of the fact:
- Tommen is prophesized to die
- Everyone is looking forward to the Mountain just cutting some jerk in half
- This is Game of Thrones and that’s pretty much the most horrific thing I can imagine happening to Cercei at this point.
The other possibility is that it will be Lorris. Because that would set the Tyrells and Lanisters against each other, (at which point Tommen will be killed).
I assumed what we were seeing was what the Mad King intended for King’s Landing (as Jaime described to Brienne). The stockpiles of wildfire being set alight and causing an explosion in the middle of downtown Kings Landing like the one we saw at the Battle of the Blackwater. Probably much larger as those stores looked like a lot more wildfire than Bronn and Tyrion could stuff in a fireship.
Right, this never made much sense. Jaqen originally offered to kill 3 men for Arya to restore some cosmic balance and please the many faced god. And often they hint that they serve some sort of cosmic purpose, or some sort of justice for the powerless. Arya’s first target was the insurance broker for the shipping - Jaqen made it sound like he screwed some widow and kid out of their payment, and that the faceless men were acting as a force of justice.
But when she said the actress was a decent person, Jaqen basically said “yeah well we kill decent people too, whoever pays us”
So are you cutthroats for hire or a religious cult restoring balance to the universe?
So much of that storyline is inconsistent and unclear.
Or it jut blew up one workshop and they built another. The stuff is considered frightening for a reason.
It’s mentioned in the books that the workshops are designed in such a way as to contain exactly such an event; if there’s a runaway fire or explosion the wood structure will collapse and sand will consume the entire space, extinguishing the wildfire. It’s not a huge stretch to think maybe that system has had to be used once before.
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But in any case, despite his disgust, his father offered Gilly and her kid a home. I don’t know if the audience was supposed to root for Sam as he stole the sword, but I sure as fuck didn’t.
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I still don’t understand why we are following Sam and Gilly at all, or why any of this is of interest. Every minute of it has been a waste of time; worse, in fact, since, as you point out, it’s made Sam, a likeable character, look like a jerk.
I am sure the sword thing will come back to mean something, but the thing is that we’ve seen guys and their fathers be pissed off at each other before so who cares? We’ve already had this dynamic. We already knew Sam’s father hated him. Now, if we could see a bit of Oldtown and the place someone becomes a Maester, that would be quite interesting, and would allow for a little worldbuilding before sending Sam back to the Wall to play a part in the story. We could have totally skipped this entire Days Of Our Lives interlude.
As to Queen Margaery, I agree the logical conclusion here is she’s playing everyone. It would be stupidly out of character for her NOT to be doing so - so much so it’d be a jarring error on the part of the writers, almost equivalent to accidentally changing someone’s name. For years now her goal has been power, always has been, and she’ll be all sweetness and light to get herself out of the sept and when it’s the right time to put the High Sparrow’s head on a pike, it’ll be on a pike. We’re talking about a woman who’s been married three times already and always seems to convince her husband she’s the perfect match for him. That was not the right time for a slaughter; it would have been a terrible mess, the people would have hated the royal family, etc etc. A massacre would not have suited her agenda.