I agree that the Tully men should have been smarter than to let Edmure in. Or once Edmure comes in and orders the gates to be open for the Lannisters to come in that at least some of the Tully men should have resisted or protested.
But I don’t see why Jaime would send Edmure in to convince the Blackfish to take the Brienne deal, since that would put him in a much worse place than he is now. Jaime wasn’t trying to get a win for everyone, just a win for him in the easiest way so he could get back to Cersei. And I think Jaime said that Brienne had until sundown, and that was after sundown.
I really liked this episode for some reason. I haven’t enjoyed the Arya plot but at least this leg is over. My biggest two quibbles - why didn’t the Mountain slaughter the rest of the sparrows in the Red Keep? It seemed out of character to not kill them all.
For a society of secret assassins, using stealth and face stealing magic to be invisible, having a giant chase scene through the streets of Braavos was weird. Super stealth mode, until I decide to run you down in a footrace!
Tommen is so wussy that it makes my sympathize with Cersei. I don’t like that.
How is a massacre smarter or a better solution for anyone? the Tully men are in a much better position under Edmure than they were under the Blackfish, they survived. Jamie sent Edmure in because he realized the Blackfish was too stubborn to surrender even when it was the obvious thing to do. Surrendering the castle WAS a better solution for everyone, the only one who wanted to go down fighting for pointless reasons was the Blackfish, and he got his wish anyways.
and are therefore better human beings than we are.
I do like that Tommen took away the Trial By Combat from Cersie. Makes the situation more interesting in that she is now going to have to up her game. Hopefully with wildfire.
Definitely - a little scary, but not what I’d expect from a Faceless Man.
As I’ve said before, I suspect that Maester Mengele is mistaken as to just how much he’s taken over Varys’s network of “little birds.” Candy and courtesy go only so far. Most if not all of them have remained loyal - and informative - to Varys, I’ll wager.
Yeah, I liked that, too. Missandei has never been more appealing. What did she call Grey Worm? Some affectionate nickname?
Is there anybody in Westeros with a halfway-decent lawful claim to the Iron Throne when/if Tommen snuffs it?
Yeah, it looked like Dany’s ride was probably off to visit the harbor for that very purpose.
Agreed.
Probably the best fanwank under the circumstances. I could see them playing it either way: the FM will still be coming for Arya because it was her name on the list, and a person having been named, that person must die; OR they’ll accept the Waif’s death in lieu of Arya’s and let her go propitiate the Faceless God in some of the nicest castles of Westeros.
Arya was only blind because she prematurely stole a face off the wall and wore it to assassinate someone she had a personal vendetta against.
Based on the (stupid, nonsensical, incoherent) Faceless Man philosophy, I’d say that it’s very unusual for one of the students to do this.
So I’m guessing the Waif never had any blind fighting training, since it’s unlikely that she would have gone so far off-book from her training to end up blind in the first place.
Hey now, I’m not the one who wrote a ten thousand word essay about how I’m much smarter than everyone else because I got it totally wrong.
If I had got it wrong, I’d either shut up about it or say “whoopsie” and move on with my life. But that’s me, and apparently I’m a retard for getting it right.
A massacre wouldn’t be good, but they could have not led Edmure in and just have the two year siege like the Blackfish wanted, no massacre would result from that at least any time soon. If the Blackfish was able to assemble enough loyal men to take over the castle, I would think those men would have enough loyalty to the Tullys to be willing to at least do some fighting. I’m assuming that people in general aren’t huge fans of the Freys, since I wouldn’t think the Blackfish would be able to assemble enough men and take it over otherwise.
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, and the knights and common men don’t care one way or the other about who is in charge of a castle. They’ve shown that loyalty to a house isn’t everything, but I think it’s also not nothing. No blood being shed is obviously the best in the short term, but I just would think that some men would have thought that the Tullys being in charge instead of the Freys would be better in the longer term.
I take from the Blackfish’s question to Jaime (“Do you have two years?” or whatever it was) that his strategy was to basically hope that the Lannister/Frey army outside the castle would have something else come up and have to leave by the time the defenders ran out of supplies. And we, the viewers, know that the Lannisters have numerous other fish to fry at the moment. I’m not sure that the people actually under the siege have any way of knowing that - from their perspective, they’re the last holdouts of a war that’s already over, and they can’t expect any help from the outside.
From my understanding of pre-modern warfare it was pretty common for besieged garrisons or cities to be given an ultimatum at some point that this was their last chance to surrender or there would be no quarter given when the position finally fell. I feel like Edmure made a reasonable decision under the circumstances, given the threats to his men and his family.
Very likely, plus I’m guessing the sardonic guy who brought Rickon to Winterfell might have a well-timed mid-battle defection back to the cause of House Stark. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
I had the same thought.
Bronn is also a helluva skilled (if unchivalric) fighter.
Best line of the show. And FrankenMountain’s eyes… brrrr!
To lull Tyrion into a sense of complacency? Or maybe the three envoys really did buy Tyrion’s seven-years-until-abolition policy, and intended to recommend it to their superiors. They might’ve given orders to the Sons of the Harpy to lay off in the meantime, but were overruled once they got back home. The fleet arrives to more emphatically let Tyrion know the deal’s off.
Oh, unquestionably. That’s what he said just before pushing Bran out the window.
Compelling indeed - and a way for the showrunners to remind us there’s more than one way to tell a story.
Nicely put.
Ouch. That would really ruin Cersei’s day.
Definitely. She’s desperate, not as clever as she imagines, and of course has already said she’s willing to “choose violence.”
I was thinking it would’ve been a better move for Ayra to let the Waif get almost close enough to attack her with her dagger, and only then reveal Needle and kill her with it.
She decided to not sublimate her sense of self, and not join a cult. That’s not a flaw in a plan, that’s a good thing.
That’s a particularly goofy nit to pic. Arya’s been training to be a sneaky fuck for years. She obviously stole the money, even when she hands the larger bag to the captain, she snatches it back before leaving. She’s fast, bold, and clever, and specifically trained in deception. So that’s why we didn’t need a scene of her stealing the money.
A single young girl disappears into a crowd. A young girl with a sword is a really, really, noticeable thing.
The faceless men aren’t all-knowing, and a city of what, 20 or 30 thousand people will allow you to move pretty freely. Skulking around and acting like you have a secret is certainly much worse.
Everything was finally coming together, she was heading home. She let her guard down, and I’m guessing this will show her that she can’t do that.
"Where have I seen her before? [stabby-stabby] “Oh, right.”
Her plan, was clearly to leave the city on that boat. She stashed her sword, with the hope that she could run there if chased and choppy, choppy, darky stabby.
She wasn’t giving the assassin a free shot. She got stabbed by accident. She only survived because the Waif decided to painfully stab her, turning the knife, and then show her face, just to let it sink in that it was the Waif that was killing Arya. It was the Waif’s hubris that let Arya live, not some plan of hers.
Obviously the Waif didn’t think she drowned, she kept looking for her. Again, it wasn’t Arya’s plan, Arya legitimately escaped, after letting her guard down, only because the Waif was essentially toying with her food.
Again, this wasn’t a brilliant plan, it was a frantic escape. That’s what you’re missing here.
Better to run onstage? Seriously, you’re just reaching here, trying to pad the list.
She was desperate. The doctor skills were, I’d assume, so that they didn’t have to waste the time introducing a new doctor character for the waif to stabby-stabby.
It was a desperate gambit. And it worked, for a time. Until the Waif tracked her down.
It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape.
It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape.
We don’t know how long it was. It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape. Also, she was on morphene. She obviously wasn’t healed, she just was full of happy juice.
It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape.
It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape. And the Waif died, because she made it personal. And after Arya got away, she was in danger of being erased herself, if Jaqen found out how she flummoxed it because of her personal feelings.
It wasn’t a plan, it was a frantic escape. Also, she stashed her weapon where it wouldn’t draw attention to her, and where she would have a good chance to win a fight against the superior Waif. That part was a plan, but it was just a place to try to get to, if shit turned bad.
Substitutions are allowed. And she needed to have a heart to heart with Jaqen, else, he’d send no one else after her.
Again, you are just not understanding what happened, and it’s creating this issue with you. This wasn’t Moriarty sculpting Holmes into an elaborate trap. She tried to get off the island, got sloppy, barely escaped, and managed to make it back to where she stashed her sword and could fight where she had an advantage against the Waif.
I think it’s fine. But the issues raised above are certainly based on assuming that the whole thing was a chessgame where the Waif fell into Arya’s trap. It wasn’t. She survived because the Waif wanted to make her be afraid and suffer. Simple as that.
I’ll agree with you on the trap part, but the rest (mystery money, lackadaisical attitude, knowing the old women’s face, no needle, and worst of all the quick recovery from seemly fatal wounds) were setups. I don’t care how high you are on opium, it doesn’t give you the comfort and strength to overcome those kind of wounds.
Until they explain some of it (and it may come), I think it was weak writing.
My take, as I said earlier is that the money is a non-issue. She’s been trained in stealth and deception, she can easily steal the money. Why bother to show it? Would you wonder if you saw the hound with a horse after we’d last seen him walking? He has the skills to get them, so you accept he got them, somehow.
The calm demeanor, I’d assume, is that she’s genuinely happy, and isn’t trying to look like someone skulking around. If she’s in a dark cloak, whispering to the captain, she’d stand out more.
She had a second from when the old woman talked until she was slashed, not that unrealistic to take a moment to recognize a face you saw once, weeks ago, in a wall alcove.
She stashed needle because a young girl with a sword is weird as fuck, and completely noteworthy. People would talk about it. It would make her easier to track. So she kept it in her dark hidey-hole until she was ready to get on the boat.
As for the milk of the poppy, yeah, perhaps, but we don’t know how long she was in the actress’ home. It might have been days, or a week.