What deal, and i can’t imagine anyone missing Tyrion except the audience. The common people hate him. His brother perhaps, but emotions are mixed right now there.
I deny it. I didn’t find it weird at all. I found the way they handled it superb. The entire scene (plus the previous scenes in his story) showed how he fought to the end for his cause, how his cause was clearly over, and how he had accepted it. He had become fully what he truly was – a nobody, a dead man on the battle field. No promised prince, no king. The scene encapsulated how quickly and abruptly his true reality sets in. And cinematically, the quick cut to Ramsay’s stab emphasizes that Stannis just got squished like a meaningless bug by the Bolton’s and that he is not worthy of any more thought.
Think about the alternative: What would have been the purpose of showing his bloody head rolling on the ground, staying on it for five seconds while some grand music plays? That would have been gratuitous, and it would remove the above cinematic and storytelling benefits. While the show offers horrible things to the viewers all the time, they always have some storytelling purpose. The flayed man in Moat Cailin. Ned’s head on a stake. Cassel’s botched beheading. The grotesqueness of all of these had real purposes. In Stannis’s case, Brienne wouldn’t learn anything about herself from seeing a rolling head; she’s seen plenty before. Stannis wouldn’t grow as a character; he’s dead. And no one else was around. The only storytelling reason to show his head is to confirm he’s dead, but obviously he’s dead. There’s no reason to doubt it, so why put in five seconds of useless head rolling footage when instead one can emphasize how much of a blip on history Stannis had become, and how soundly the Boltons had brought that about?
A well crafted death scene, IMHO.
Agreed with all of that. Having Stannis survive that scene would’ve been bad writing and a stupid gimmicky trick that would’ve been below the level of writing the show.
It reminds me about the debate people had about the final scene of season 3 of Breaking Bad. It baffled me that people could’ve thought it was anything other than it obviously was, that the writers suddenly turned into soap opera gimmick writers, running contrary to everything they’ve ever done.
Are you talking about when Stannis pulls it out of the burning statues of the Seven, or the one he’s showing around at the Wall? The former was just a sword that they lit on fire with oil. The latter was a glamor without heat. Aemon and Sam specifically remark on how the sword they see isn’t actually on fire.
Yes in the first scene with Stannis and Melisandre the burning sword is not magic at all, just a sword lit on fire. It isn’t later until Mel is able to do the glamour trick. Either she came up with that along the way, or her magic is growing in power with the dragons.
Yes, I’m thinking of the earlier incident, on the beach. That’s the one I described as a “magic trick”—when I say “magic trick” I mean something that Penn and Teller or James Randi could pull off in real life, not something that uses “real magic.”
I had forgotten about the other event at the Wall.
Now, that’s an interesting hypothesis. I thought (or rather hoped) that the story wouldn’t end with Danaerys defeating the white walkers on dragonback with Jon by her side. But I wasn’t sure what Martin/the showrunner could do with her then.
This would both make sense and make for a great twist. I hope, hope, hope he will turn to be right. And on top of it, I don’t like Danny much and find her morality dubious, so I would find very satisfying to see her becoming an official villain. 
That’s my favourite fanwank so far.
It’s the same in the show.
It’s not obvious at all in the show that this isn’t magic. And we know that Melisandre has magical powers. Presumably, it woudn’t be difficult for her to put the blade ablaze.
You know…without reading the article and just going by Daario’s reaction to her last ep…I’d say that’s not a bad idea.
“Hold the door” has to be a direct spoiler from Martin. It has to be book canon.
The origin of the whitewalkers on the other hand seems a bit unlikely.
Yeah, that was thrown in massively quickly. Did they turn…a human into one? is that what they did?
That’s what it looked like, but from the lore the children of the forest had warred the first men for like two thousand years then made peace for about a thousand more before the white walkers showed up. So their story doesn’t quite add up.
But I can’t believe that they would do that without Martin’s say-so. And it fits the whole ethos of the story I thought.
They could have done it to fight the Andals.
So far as I recall, by the time the Andals showed up, the Wall had been up so long that the Andals never really believed in the existence of the Others.
Yeah, but the show canon might be different. Martin said that the histories are kinda up in the air too. It’s been so long a lot of the details are probably at least slightly wrong.
Hmm, I’ll have to think about this. Spend some time on the wiki.
I’m the books did Euron admit to killing Balon?
Hodor!
Rest in peace.
Hodor 
(though a bit sucky that Hodor ended up that way because 30 or so years ago, Bran as greenseer possessed him, so that in the current day he could sacrifice himself for Bran’s safety)
Also interesting that the Others / White Walkers were created by the Children of the Forest as a sort of “nuclear option” against men. Though I wonder where exactly Bran and Meera are going to go now (and, you know… be safe)