Exactly. It’s credible to interpret her strutting around as overconfidence and poor judgement, or perhaps a poorly-conceived trap to draw the Waif out and lead her to the dark room. Not great writing, but not totally out of character or unbelievable. But it’s just weak writing and a cheap trick to create a cliffhanger by having her stabbed in a manner that looks quite obviously fatal under the rules of this world (a place that doesn’t have hospitals), and then resolve it in the next episode by the trope that It’s Just A Flesh Wound. And then exacerbate the weak and unbelievable resolution by having her parkour across the city apparently just a few hours later.
The Hound did recover from pretty bad injuries, but the nature of the injuries were not shown specifically - basically he tumbled down a cliff as I recall? And he wasn’t kicking ass a few hours later - he was found by a generous and kind group, and recovered over months or years.
They failed to kill Myrcella even when one of them had her by the hand and could easily have stabbed her. They killed Trystane by treachery by stabbing him in the back, when one of them was so incompetent to use a bullwhip as a weapon in an enclosed space. That’s not very convincing about their abilities.
You haven’t been paying attention. Volantis is the one who has been financing the sons of the Harpy and the rebellions in Astapoor and Yunkai because Dani has threatened their supply of slaves. One of the negotiators who meets with Tyrion is from Volantis.
Yeah, someone would definitely get that word out, but I’ll hardly be shocked is the Greyjoys someone show up unannounced. Even if they weren’t on board with the Sons of the Harpy, someone in the city would send a message. Lack of sentries or communication is been bugging me lately.
The Sand Snakes thing was ridiculous. Ridiculous, but not specifically incompetent. Off the top of my head, they’re like 4/4 in successful assassinations:
Areo Hotah (stab)
Prince Doran (stab)
Prince Trystane (spear)
Princess Myrcella (poison)
Bad choreography, terrible dialogue, and unrealistic success doesn’t make them incompetent, just unbelievable. And ridiculous.
But if the Sandinista Liberation Front switch from overt violence to controlling men’s minds with their boobs, they will be sitting on the Iron Throne in a matter of weeks.
She needed a reminder of her sister being in a bad marriage and her father having his head cut off? Right, so we got weeks of some silly bollocks play and a bunch of random characters.
You might be over stretching.
I wouldn’t count that as 4/4, but at best 4/6 since they missed in their first attempt against Myrcella and Trystane (although they didn’t seem to have Trystane as a target in that attempt).
Not one of those killings was by combat, all were by treachery when the victim had his or her guard down. (And to nitpick, two were by Ellaria Sand rather than by any of the Sand Snakes.) Ok, they eventually managed to kill their targets, but despite all their vaunted abilities, they haven’t been shown to be particularly good in combat, only in stabbing people when they weren’t looking. (Incidentally, Prince Doran dies within minutes from the same kind of stab wound to the gut that Arya received.)
Even so, they were better than the Waif, who could have taken some pointers from them on how to kill someone who wasn’t expecting it.
I thought the acting troupe was the high point of the tortuous Arya-learns-to-be-a-murder-genie storyline. Prior to this, she was on the road for (presumably) several years, completely disconnected from high-level Westeros politics and her family. It was far more subtle than just reminding her of traumatic events. She was shown the public reaction to this portrayal of events, completely at odds to her own feelings. And we saw her own feelings become more nuanced. In her discussion with the Cersei actress, she showed that she now realizes that perhaps life is not so black-and-white. She empathized with Cersei and explained to the actress the vengeful anger that Cersei would surely feel at those who murdered her young son.
Essentially, this was the only point in two years where we say Arya’s character develop and become more sophisticated and interesting. All the rest seemed to amount to no more than Karate Kid fight montage interspersed with incoherent and inconsistent supernaturalism from the FM.
Uh, yes? She’s been going through this “no one” training where the cult is specifically teaching her to let all of it go and basically renounce her family and identity. And seemingly, at least enough to get by, she’s going with it. She’s at a point where she needs to make a decision about who she really wants to be. And conveniently, they send her to this play, where her family is insulted and made fun of, misconstrued, inaccurate, and she also likely learns about some events that happened after she left. Does it get to her, or is she “no one?” Does her family need her back, and does she want to go help them? EDIT: and as Riemann noted, it does get Arya thinking about the other side, which is a good point, too.
Yes, that’s what it was there for, as the catalyst for her decision to leave. It also has a “meta” point (as other storylines do, ie regarding justice vs. vengeance, the futility of war, etc.) regarding how history is defined by the winners, and the people who write/trasmit/perform the stories (ie. the media). All that most people around the world will know of Ned Stark is that he was a bumbling oaf, etc.
So, yes. It was a catalyst to move the story along. It was fun to watch in its own right. And it was a reminder that the news can be manipulated or skewed and for the most part, nobody knows any differently, or particularly cares. It was probably the best thing about the Braavos mess.
I thought the troupe scenes were interesting primarily in that they are virtually the only glimpse we have into what the Common Folk think of the events we’re seeing; and it’s interesting how the sympathies of the author (some Lannister hack, apparently) are different from ours.
Tyrion’s fly-in-the-wine joke sounded familiar. I think I’ve heard it, with a Scotsman as the punchline nationality (reinforced by the brogue Peter Dinklage used as his Stark accent. And accents are not his forte.)
Last we saw Euron didn’t have any ships. The ships were all sailing away. The ships are being built. Right now Yara has the fleet.
He wants to conquer Westeros and she’s a queen in need of a king. He came out and stated it.
As for the criticism of the writing of this episode, I don’t really care about Arya being able to run with a sucking gut wound. I was disappointed in the dialogue. I was really happy with the previous episode with the return of witty dialogue. Between The Hound and Father Lovejoy, and Jaime and Bronn, it returned to the time when episodes were filled with clever, funny, and insightful dialogue. There were a few good lines but much fewer than last episode.
The plays have been a highlight. I also think it would have been more interesting to see Arya leave with them and play her sister. And then eventually be brought to Westeros to perform it in King’s Landing…in front of the court.
Yeah, a poisoned blade would have made Arya suffer without leaving any doubt about it being fatal. And the Faceless Men are experts with poison, not only in drink but also with poison darts like Jaqen used at Harrenhal.
While I really doubt this happening, this would help explain why Jaqen just let’s Arya go at the end if he knows it’s really the Waif in full Arya mode.
