Chekhov’s ballista, in other words.
Again, you’re forgetting the bannermen. The various lords that supported the Tyrells in the past now support the Lannisters. They don’t need to “hold” anything.
Exactly. Although I predict I will be disappointed at how it plays out. Realistically (hah!) it’d be near impossible to hit a dragon in flight, and that ballista looks very unwieldy. Combine that with the idea that the dragons really should just firebomb everyone from super high up where they are out of range, and however a dragon gets hit will seem like an unforced error/plot contrivance.
At least one of the dragons is gonna snuff it, and we’ll get a nice scene of Dany shifting from tear-filled grief to white-hot rage.
That’s “Daenerys.”
This is what the US thought was how it was going to work like in Iraq.
It did not.
Look, imagine at the start of WWI, that the Germans removed all but a token force from their border with France, put all their efforts into sweeping through Belgium and northern France, somehow hand-waved away the supply chain details, and took Paris.
Meanwhile, they allow France to conquer all of Germany and take Berlin.
Who won?
This is what Jaime and Cersei just did. They just gave up their entire kingdom to hold onto a theoretical throne that rules over all, except, of course, for the part they just surrendered voluntarily. And the north. And the central part, after Arya was done with the Freys.
The bannermen, riding towards the castle at, erm, Highgarden, looked like they were on their way to a funeral. They were, and they knew it.
And they knew why.
Now, next week, the writers might show this is not the way things go, and I will happily go along with that. But in this short period before the next show, I think, on the evidence given in the last episode, that this was a colossal blunder.
On a lighter note–for the first time I remember the writers did bring up two things that i thought were never going to mentioned.
First, Sansa was thinking about the supply chain and logistics, and also treating it like the worst-case scenario was exactly what Jon said would happen, and people were taking her seriously.
Second, someone finally sort of worked around mentioning that the Dragons are barely under Dany’s control, and not actually that useful except in a general way, like a yellow dog is useful chasing a ball. Probably a foreshadow that Messandei said something like “it only takes one arrow” (even though she was talking about Dany, at the time)
And, really, any way the writers go the next show is ok with me, and will reset things for me. I’m just going with how I see things, given what I was shown, this week.
And thanks to everyone–I really like hearing your opinions and theories.
Most of them are better than mine…
Is this some sort of uber nitpicking where it’s not even about spelling, but you can’t use the most common nickname for a character?
I’ll add my dissent to the idea that Dany is better off after this episode. Her enemy destroyed another substantial portion of her fleet, killed her biggest ally and persuaded most of her army to join them, cut off her most elite troops from the rest of her people. In return she got a castle and no way to hold it. The Unsullied have to abandon it almost immediately or else they’ll starve. There’s just no way in hell that she’s in a better position after that.
I do think it’s a narrative setback more than a logical one though. It’s implausible to me that Euron catches up to them as well as goes completely unnoticed. Dany and all of her advisors have to be borderline retarded to not have any scouts or sentries for any of their forces. And we’ve spent six years being told how smart Tyrion and Varys and Olenna are. Don’t buy it. Whatever though, the pace is picking up and they don’t want to spend the time getting there in a way that’s more realistic to the audience. Not my favorite, but I’ll survive.
She could Harrenhall it. Get everybody out and just have the dragons melt the place.
[Cue Harp] . . .and now the rains . . .
You make some really good points.
My position is, basically, look at the map.
How does this help Cersei or Jaime? They have isolated all their effective troops and officers in the middle of nowhere.
And this isn’t the north in winter–the unsullied have just as much food supply as the betrayed Lannister soldiers did.
And the people of the country now have soldiers that do not rape, or plunder in charge?
They are going to roll over to supporting Dany in a heartbeat.
Compared to Cersei?
Dany just took an entire kingdom in a day.
Still not sure why Dame Diana Rigg didn’t have a gun (or crossbow) hidden away–she always did as emma peel, and, as that character, wore catsuits and jumpsuits without pockets (but with oversized watches).
Left the first part of your quote in because, erm, yeah.
WTF?
Some fair points, the pace this season is absolutely breakneck which could explain why it seems a bit jarring in comparison with prior seasons. It still does irk me that in the space of what, a few months? He said “Build me a thousand ships!”, everyone seemingly thought ‘Oh yeah, we never thought of that!’, and then actually build a massive powerful navy overnight with no mention of how they accomplished this living as they do on a bunch of barren birdshit stained rocks, after a bunch of their ships had already been stolen.
Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying Euron a lot more this season as he’s gone from random vulgar windbag to some kind of sociopathic Jack Sparrow. I just hope he doesn’t become a boring invincible villain and get pulled out whenever the writers need to slow down Dany.
In Hardhome when a White Walker entered a burning house the flames immediately died down around him and the heat didn’t seem to bother him at all, so if they end up somewhere above freezing their mere presence lowers the temparature. Although trying to capture a White Walker seems like a suicide mission, nabbing a wight might be a bit easier. I think they just rot, albeit at a reduced rate (think they mentioned it when they found the guy who wound up trying to kill Mormont). But they still move even when skeletal, so it’d still do for a “The dead are coming - here’s one of 'em,” type demonstration.
Just returning the favor. I don’t even know why it’s about spelling 
. . . if you’re nasty . . .
I think we need Indy Neidell doing a weekly recap
(for those not into his series, The Great War - YouTube )
(that sounds like a commercial–it isn’t–the series is just almost-good history presented in easy-to-digest segments)
If the Lannisters won they would get resupplied. The Unsullied are surrounded. Absolutely completely different situations.
There literally was a scene was the lords were given a choice between Dany and Cersei and they all chose Cersei.
No she didn’t. She took a castle that they cannot hold.
This article agrees with you, as do I.
The pacing of GoT is now such that armies and fleets appear to be magically popping up all over Westeros based on where the plot needs them. And battles between great houses resolve themselves in a few minutes of show time instead of multiple episodes or seasons.
In contrast, how many episodes did Rob’s campaign take until cut short by the Red Wedding?
or the build up to the Battle of the Blackwater?
or Mance Rayder’s assault on The Wall and Castle Black?
or Stannis’ ill-fated assault on Winterfell
or the various cross country “buddy road trips” of Bronn/Tyrion, Brienne/Jaime, Brienne/Pod, Jaime/Bronn, Arya/Hound, or Hound/Brotherhood
And it’s impossible to hide the movement of armies and fleets this size. Maybe in the vast unpopulated wastelands of the North, but in the populated heart of Westeros? The sudden emptying of Casterly Rock doesn’t draw any attention? No ravens or spies or just plain old word of mouth makes it to Highgarden or Dragonstone?
Also why is anyone doubting Jon Snow at this point? How many thousands of Wildlings and sailors aboard Stannis’s fleet saw the White Walker attack at Hardhome like 2 seasons ago. Word of that hasn’t spread throughout Westeros?
When Sam rocked up at The Citadel (S6E10), whose stock and trade is information, they didn’t even know who the freaking Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch was, Jeor has been dead since episode 3 of the 3rd season. News travels slow, real slow.
If a lost Amazonian tribe took a boat to the USA and said there are zombies coming for us, would you believe them?
Maybe if I had a pet dragon.
And if you look closely at that map you will see that Dragonstone is at the mouth of Blackwater bay. Euron’s fleet was in Blackwater bay at the beginning of Season 7 when Dany landed. So at some point, his fleet sailed right past all of Dany’s ships and her 3 dragons.
I just don’t get the feeling that what transpired actually changes the course of anything. It’s clear that Dany and Jon are going to come out on top. At this point, we are just waiting to find out how.