Rickon had to die so Sansa could become Wardeness of the North. It wouldn’t be as satisfying to watch Rickon take that role after he was a little kid and we’ve barely come to know the character. Poor little guy had to die for the sake of drama.
The producers specifically referenced that battle as an inspiration.
Ah, didn’t realize, I don’t usually watch the little segments (if that’s what you’re talking about).
I really really hope there’s some dialog next episode which suggests that the Sansa-planned-it-all theory is correct. That makes it a way better episode in retrospect than just another cavalry-shows-up-at-the-last-minute.
The other thing that bugged me was that suddenly the slavers were so helpless against dragons. They’d proven in the arena with the sons of the harpies that dragons are vulnerable to spears. So did they just not have a plan for when their fleet of ships got attacked by dragons, as seemed inevitable?
Or did they attack based on the (true until just this episode) assumption that Dany was not in Mereen? Or did the dragons get way bigger and stronger very quickly and are now basically invulnerable?
The other two dragons breaking out was also kinda lame. I feel like a lot that has happened this season that was lame (Ramsay killing Roose, everything in Dorne, the two captive dragons being freed) was basically the writers saying “here’s how it was left when we were following GRRM’s books, here’s how we want it to be now so we can tell our stories… how do we get from point A to point B?” and then just doing the most direct thing possible, which is a bit disappointing.
fwiw, the big lad could definitely have kicked his way out of that enclosure. That part was a bit daft. Jon Snow nearly going under however … very good.
I think the relevant people are not slavers, but slaves. Most of the people on those ships are slaves, and the woman riding dragons is famous for freeing slaves. Why throw spears at her and risk the drawing the dragon’s ire, when you can just surrender and become a free man?
She promised him nothing- he’s doing it because of how badly he f’ed up marrying her off to Ramsay, and this is his, “Are we cool now?” move to get even.
Looks like I’m on of the few (so far) who didn’t like the episode much. True, the bad guys shouldn’t win just to invert a tired cliché – but the lucky fool is an even worse one.
Just like Arya, John acted incredibly stupid and was saved by (well, insert plot, luck or destiny here, but definitely not by his own merits). And worse than Arya, many men paid for his stupidity. When Wun Wun died, it felt wrong, because John had not earned his sacrifice - or anything at all.
Neither did Sansa, though for different reasons. It’s quite likely that she kept the Vale knights a secret because she (or Littlefinger - who knows how much communication they had off-screen?) expected pretty much what was going to happen: a desperate charge from John. This blunder gave Ramsay the confidence to fully commit his forces to the battle field to crush his enemies slowly and cruely while he could watch it happening.
The plan worked. Yet, by keeping those forces a secret, she refused John the option to come up with a better solution (a sham retreat after a first clash, for example, that might very well have forced Ramsay farther away from his stronghold as well) which might have saved plenty of his men.
Sansa didn’t trust John at all. And while the events seem to vindicate her - after all, he did insist on fighting Ramsay with inferior numbers and he did blunder hot-headedly into a blatantly obvious trap - John’s precarious position pre-battle makes it hard to find a true fault in his desperate charge once he had committed himself to fight such a one-sided battle in front of Winterfell.
There was little expectation for victory to begin with: the troops were neither well-organized nor trained to fight such an enemy, no experienced NCOs, wrong equipment, no war machinery at all, not the slightest bit of tactical advantage, not even terrain to make up for some of the many disadvantages… And I think the last bit of hope for yet another miracle died away when Melisandre couldn’t or wouldn’t offer him any help or even encouragement.
John was desperate - and Sansa’s lie by omission made sure he stayed that way for the battle.
That plan (whether it was her own or Littlefinger’s) already hinted at a cruelty in her that was confirmed by her treatment of Ramsay and, even more, her smile in the end. Did he deserve it? Sure, and worse than that.
But I wish she or John had found it in them to simply do the necessary and just put him to death on the battlefield or execute him later publicly.
He died a death of vengeance. And while this feels satisfactory on a personal level, it’s not a hopeful sign for things to come from the new power in the North.
And Dany… Oh well, it’s as bad as in the books: everything just falls into her lap. Even when it looks like she is in a fix, it’s actually just a condition to make her forces stronger yet.
Absolutely the section where John was nearly trampled to death was executed so well, it really was a “saving private ryan” moment in depiction of battles, I’ve never seen anything like it.
And yes, you are right, when they were enclosed the giant should have lead a charge at the shields with an organised body of men behind him, they could have broken free and then attacked the Shield wall from the rear, I guess I can believably put that down to the Wildlings lack of discipline in battle and the panic among the men.
In the little “behind the episode” vignette after the show, they specifically mentioned that they used this battle as inspiration for the scene.
Edit: already mentioned, I see
Seriously? The nerve. On the most superficial level, maybe, but … Oh boy.
I think it’s almost certain there will be more pruning of the Lannisters and their allies in the last episode of the season. They’re not in a real position to contest the North even now.
Like “Lionheart,” “Giantsbane” is a sobriquet rather than a surname. It just applies to Tormund, and is not hereditary.
[QUOTE=Ascenray]
Mance Rayder had a family name because he was a southerner.
[/QUOTE]
Mance Rayder was a Wildling foundling raised by the Night’s Watch. I don’t think the origin of his surname has been explained.
So what? We know who is meant. Correcting trivial spelling errors is tiresome.
Agreed this was a great episode and, as usual, Tyrion gets the best lines:
“Mereen is on the rise… You have the support of the people. Well… not all of the people.”
The biggest hole in the ‘Sansa is a master schemer’ refrain is that it depended on Wun-Wun living, and being able to charge at Winterfell at just the opportune moment to take out the door before they were prepared for a siege. If Wun-Wun was killed or somehow the door wasn’t able to be breached then the entire thing fails. I continue to believe it was Sansa just withholding information as a combination of a power play, trying to be a schemer but failing, and TV drama where characters don’t talk to each other. The whole multi episode sequence of Sansa not talking to Jon was incredibly annoying.
It may be a good idea to do something Ramsay didn’t expect. It’s not great when all your forces are doing something the leader doesn’t expect.
Honestly, it seems a shift to Matriarchy is where this tale is heading (although it will be Dany sitting on the Iron Throne [If she doesn’t melt it down in Dragon fire], not Cersei or Marjorie). I have been saying for a while now that as much as people seem to like suffering and misery, this story needs a satisfying ending. Queen Sansa in the North and Dany in the South is not so bad.
Especially considering that by the time this is all done, the Lannisters will be gone or a shadow of what they were, the White Walkers will be gone, the Wildlings will live peaceably in the North, there will be no Castle Black anymore, the Dothraki are no longer roving lunatics and the Slavers are extinct. Basically the death of a good family (the Starks) and all the other bad things would be the price for a pretty decent and stable world.
I thought about the superficial similarity as I watched it, as well. But you’re right that it differs in the details. Hannibal’s maneuver was a brilliant move to encircle a larger force with a smaller one. Ramsay was just mopping up an inferior force that was already on the verge of defeat.
I went into that battle hoping that they were going to make a brilliant move, rather than just get saved by the cavalry. Something that would have made Hannibal proud. The actual filming of the battle was fantastic, but I couldn’t help but be taken out of it by Jon’s aggressively poor decisions. He screwed up so badly that it made the cavalry their only hope.
The main screw-up was allowing Ramsay to get back into Winterfell in the first place. They perhaps should have had a squad positioned and ready to head off his retreat.
Even having Ramsay bottled up in Winterfell wouldn’t have been a defeat. And Jon and Sansa, like Theon, may know ways into Winterfell that the Boltons wouldn’t be aware of.
Exactly. Hannibal laid out a masterful trap. This was just some foot soldiers running in a circle.
Is everyone forgetting about Bran (easily done), but he is next in line for the Warden of the North.
As far as Tyrion asking Dany what if other kingdoms demand independence, here is what I think Dany’s plan is:
She said she is going to “break” the wheel. I take that to mean that once she’s done conquering, she’s going to introduce a type of democracy. I think her ultimate goal is to free everyone from the tyranny of kings/lords and that type of thing. I think the Iron Throne is going to be irrelevant. It will be a relic of a time before. Otherwise, the story just goes on forever with people fighting over the Iron Throne and we just happen to catch this sliver of the story. But I think a good, final ending will be with the ending of the Iron Throne as a thing.