It depends on who writes the stories. Richard III’s reputation is in large part due to a hatchet job by Shakespeare, a tale appealing to Henry VII’s granddaughter. The IRA, a bunch of murderous thugs, become lovable freedom fighters in America as that appealed to Irish-American sensibilities.
The music drowned it out and I couldn’t hear: what exactly did Qyburn say to Cersei?
So…DECONFIRMED?
@ Mr Shine, Cersei asks Qyburn if the rumors are rumors or ‘something more’, Qyburn replies ‘much more’. He might be talking about the Wildfire cache the Mad King placed under the Great Sept of Baelor…
Arya is currently in Braavos, which is on the western coast of Essos. She’s a sea away from Westeros, but a narrow one.
I don’t think the crown has much authority outside King’s Landing at this point, and certainly not in Braavos.
I think that the play is most likely Lannister sponsored propaganda, and not reflective of any prior sentiment among the population.
Two more thoughts about this episode:
I’ve come to believe the entire chase was Arya drawing the Waif into her lair (I mean this week’s chase. She definitely didn’t mean to get stabbed last week) so she can fight her in the dark. I also think this is what the Faceless men wanted all along.
Separate from all that, Jaime’s line ,“The things we do for love” had to be a call back to the first episode right?
Joffrey was hated in King’s Landing. I don’t think there would be enough information in Braavos for him to necessarily have any particular reputation. Propaganda was always effective in an age of limited communication. If some playwright decided to make Cersei the hero—either intentionally or just because he thought it made for a compelling story—there’s no widespread media technology to debunk it.
Also, now we’re accepting Arya’s actions in episode 7 as being exactly as they appeared on the surface despite the many incredulities SenorBeef pointed out, why would Arya waste all the money she got (from where?) on travelling on a boat in style, when she’s already used to much worse conditions, she’ll need the money when she gets there and she could get a simple passage for a small fraction of what she’s flaunting. Arya’s entire storyline over the last 4 seasons seems to have been something of a disaster in my opinion.
I don’t see the Lannisters as caring about the arts all that much.
More likely it’s just artistic license with the story of the King’s death.
Why would they have to care about the arts to promote themselves?
I’m thinking the Sons of the Harpy’s days are numbered. They will be trapped between the Army on the shore, dragons in the sky and the Theon’s Sister’s (forgot her name) navy in the sea.
Is it possible she stole the coins from Meryn Trant and saved it just for this purpose? I am going to go with it in my head.
I would have liked to have seen Arya Stark hiding in sight, as a travelling player acting as Sansa Stark onstage 
I don’t think we have ever seen Faceless Men worrying about how to pay their expenses. I think they just steal money whenever they need it.
I agree with the others that the rumors are about wildfire. I do think Cersei would like to hunt down Tyrion and have him brought back and executed, but it’s not the main issue on her mind right now, and she has little power to call for such things. Also, I could see her and Qyburn discussing that at some time, but Cersei just found out that trial by combat is outlawed, I would think she would be asking Qyburn something that could help her out of her current predicament.
Tommen said something about the trials being at the Sept, I’m guessing Cersei will pull a Dany and have the sparrows locked in and burn the place up. I don’t know how exactly, I don’t remember exactly how the Sept is built or the entrances, but the wildfire in Bran’s visions makes me think it will be used at some point, and this is a place it would make sense.
Yeah, once again the Waif was a terrible assassin, she could have killed Lady Crane and Arya pretty quietly but didn’t. She was wearing a face, but still standing in Lady Crane’s apartment and staring at her creepily, it would have been obvious to anyone that the intruder was up to no good.
I think talking with Brienne gave Jaime the idea on how to take the castle without lots of deaths. It wasn’t how Brienne wanted it, and I assume the Tully army is disbanded now, but they’re not all dead. Jaime certainly didn’t have much of an idea of what to do before Brienne showed up.
Jaime is certainly an inconsistent character, but Cersei brings out the worst in him and Brienne brings out better things.
It was an anti-climax with the Blackfish, but it makes sense to me that he’d stay. He didn’t think he’d be much help to Sansa with him army, he did say that he didn’t have enough to take Winterfell, so he figured he’d be even less help on his own. So it was either fight a fruitless battle at Winterfell or fight a fruitless battle at home. I wouldn’t have made the same choice, but he’s a stubborn old man, I can understand why he chose that.
Yeah, I would think a trained assassin would understand people a bit better, since you’d need to somewhat in order to get close to people and kill them.
What do you mean that’s what the Faceless men wanted all along?
Definitely a call back. Jaime could go all in on being terrible, or I wonder if he’ll reach a breaking point with the terrible things he’s done, or if he’ll see Cersei do something terrible with the wildfire and that will be his breaking point.
I wish they had shown more of Arya’s training rather than just endless stick fighting, but I figured part of the training was how to survive out in the world without being noticed, including how to steal. It should be no issue for her to get more money.
I think Tyrion’s negotiations actually strengthen Daenerys’s position – now she can unleash hell on the Masters and the two slave cities (Astapor and Yunkai) with much more justification… she can say that a deal was struck that would have made peace, but the Masters broke the deal, and everything that happens to them now is their own fault.
And Tyrion’s deal may have bought Mereen some time – without the deal, perhaps the Masters would have attacked sooner, and Dany wouldn’t have returned in time to save the city.
I agree that the Arya story was the sloppiest episode of all. Too many red herrings and a ridiculous end.
Questions:
What was in the hidden bottle that the actress was retrieving from the top of the shelf right before the waif showed up?
Did anyone see Meereen defending itself from the attack. Seems like they could catapult some of their fireballs back and burn those wooden ships to the bottom of the bay.
I was somewhat waiting for the Waif to pull out a line from Bane:
“Oh, you thing the darkness is your ally, you merely adopted the dark, I was born in it.”
Thought it was weird that Jamie & Brianne had an agreement/plan that if she could get Blackfish and the Tully army to leave with her that Jamie would let them go and peacefully take over the castle. When that didn’t work out Jamie sent in Edmure to retake command and surrender.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to send Edmure in the first place to retake command then leave with the Tully army? A win-win for both of them? I think Edmure and Brianne got screwed on the new deal.
Also, what good would a cache of wildfire do for Cersi? Seems like a good weapon for sea battles and a trebuchet but not that great for close quarters civil war battles in the streets of a city.
(Also thought Dani’s arrival was somewhat corny. “I just flew in from Vaes Dothrak and boy, are my arms tired. Just kidding. How does my hair look? So, what’s been going on guys?”)
The Sept is also the first place Jaime mentions when talking to Brienne about Aerys II’s Wildfire plot.
I will too.
“and a now a girl has finally become no one”
In my interpretation, Jaquen was exactly right: ‘a girl’ is The Waif, and she has quite definitely become ‘no one’ by being dead.
Was going to ask this well. I’m with SenorBeef on this, if really everything is just what it seems then it’s the worst writing so far in the series. Are we meant to believe that Lady Crane’s white liquid was a healing potion because that’s the only way Arya’s going to be running around doing Parkour a day after being stabbed in the gut?
Where she got the money from and not having needle on her when attacked remain unexplained and make no sense at all. And lastly why spend two seasons setting up assassins who can look like anyone, only to have the climax of that plot line not actually involve them using those powers? (Changing identities was used only peripherally, the actual outcome of the battle between Arya and the Waif didn’t depend on that ability at all. ) So the whole point of the faceless man plot was what? Arya becomes a slightly better fighter, especially in the dark but presumably does not have the power to change faces, since she rejects being no one at the very end.
Either we’re missing some key piece of information or Arya’s entire faceless man plot has been pointless. The Hound could have taught her the same fighting skills that she’s seemingly picked up in her faceless man training.