“Kill the bastards, anyway.”
I agree with that. At this point the show writers have completely given up on any subtlety whatsoever. So the scene with Sam and Dany and then Sam and Jon appear to quite obviously to indicate that the show is going to turn on Dany and her autocratic ways.
Yeah, I’m totally fine with Dany turning to be an antagonist of sorts. I think it fits with her character and her arc. It’s just that the speed and deftness of how (and if) it happens might not be the best.
I felt similarly to Stannis. I can definitely see him burn his daughter. However, I don’t think the man that survived the siege of Storm’s End by eating dogs and shoe leather does that immediately after a setback. Last resort Stannis? Sure.
Maybe he just wanted the mug: http://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/number-1-dad-best-dad-mug-stannis-baratheon-daughter-killed-game-of-thrones.jpg
HBO should sell a Stannis branded #1 dad mug. I’d buy one.
It’s a big deal because many of their allies would demand Dany step aside and Jon be made the King which would ruin the alliance completely.
As were Theon Greyjoy and Grey Worm (and all the Unsullied). Eunuchs and castrati are common in history and literature but full penilectomies? Does G.R.R. Martin have … issues?
Picking up one of Craster’s babies, maybe.
Those symbols and patterns are important to “the children” (?) who created white walkers as a weapon to use in their war against the First Men.
We see the “child” (?) tell this to Bran in the tree just before the wights broke in and Hodor had to hold the door.
They were waiting for a dragon. The undead couldn’t cross the wall because it’s warded by magic. (Uncle Benjen told this to Bran.) Bring down the wall, though, and you bring down the magic. They needed a dragon to bring down the wall, and as soon as they got one they headed out.
Here’s NPR’s funny take on who’s gonna die - no spoilers, but wildass guesses aplenty: 'Game Of Thrones' Predictions: Who Will Live? Who Will Die? : NPR
Although there was the Wight at Castle Black. And the one they brought to King’s Landing. Maybe a human can bring one across but they can’t come across on their own.
The Dragonstone cave paintings also includeWhite Walkers, suggesting that the Children created them.
Right. It may be anachronistic for medieval England, but there’s no “back then” that applies to Westeros. It’s not like the writers have been scrupulous about period authenticity, even aside from the magical elements.
However, the real reason the wine is significant is that the writers needed a shorthand way to indicate to Tyrion that Cersei might be pregnant. They decided on wine because it was something that would be noticed by modern audiences as being significant.
The two Night’s Watchmen were found apparently dead Beyond the Wall and brought into Castle Black, but didn’t revive as wights until they were actually across the Wall and inside. (But they had not decomposed, so they were not “all dead.”) At Hardhome, the Night King animates the dead as wights with just a gesture, so the Walkers can do so at a distance. So maybe they were able to be brought across because they weren’t yet reanimated as wights.
That one was brought to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea on a dragon, where it could be rowed around the end of the wall in a small boat without passing through it.
I justified the change by deciding that he dyed it. He wanted to look less “Lannister-like” so that anyone his sister sent after him might have a slightly harder time finding him.
I think that at the end, *nobody *sits the Iron Throne, probably because it gets destroyed somewhere along the way.
I think that the White Walkers are defeated in the South, and retreat again beyond the Wall, but the Seven Kingdoms are disunited, with various Kings, Queens, and Pretenders making their own preparations for the next round of the Game of Thrones.
Agreed, but we have more than suggestion. The “child” explicitly tells Bran that the children created white walkers during their war against the first men. Then Bran used his magic eye to go watch them do it by tying a human to one of the red sap trees and stabbing him in the heart with dragon glass. (Plus, presumably, some kind of special children juju. I wouldn’t think just anyone could do this with just a victim, dragonglass and an old god face tree.)
The cave painting evidence is corroboration, but mostly just flavor. We mainly know the children created white walkers because we were explicitly told this in an exposition dump on screen by one of the children, and then had the veracity of the claim confirmed by Bran’s vision. (I possibly have that backwards; the exposition may have been in response to Bran’s vision.)
I was just referring to the evidence of the cave paintings. However, reviewing the cave scene, Jon doesn’t conclude that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers, just that the Children fought together with the First Men against them. (And he uses this to urge Dany to fight together with him.) Jon hasn’t been reunited with Bran yet, so he doesn’t know the origin story.
Yes, the ‘Stannis burns his daughter’ development was not even remotely well-justified.
Time and again we see the writers trying to provide a Big Emotional Effect----but they (apparently) lack the skill to get to those big effects in a plausible or organic way.
So it appears they want to provide another Big Emotional Effect in which a heartbroken Jon has to do some particular thing that will bring Dany down or take away her power or whatever it will be. All the characters involved are played by actors skilled enough to keep the audience from completely rebelling, but…I’m guessing that whatever the Big Emotional Effect concerning Dany turns out to be, it will be something of an eye-roller.
Well, but the Night King also has access to the Weirwood net. Bran is not so much overpowered as a worthy adversary. Without him there would be no chance at all.
When he said he was waiting “for an old friend” I think he meant the Night King, not Jamie. (prediction: Night King turns out to be a double agent, and Bran is the only one who knows, because the North forgot.)
Didn’t Yara and Theon just run off with the biggest fleet in the known world?
I absolutely think Sansa is brilliant. Don’t confuse a learning curve with a failure to learn. She has built the loyalty and trust of everyone she encountered. She knew when to lie to the Lords of the Vale, and when and how to come clean. She knew when to call in Littlefinger’s chips, and exactly how to phrase it so he’d come. She learned every trick that Cersei, Tyrion and Littlefinger used, and she’s prepared both to counter every strategy and to use it against them. And IMHO Sophie Turner is doing an incredible job of making her come across competent, gracious, and regal.
Gendry is no bastard. Ask yourself, why was it necessary for Cersei to mention her firstborn? Her “Little black-haired beauty.” I’m sure he did get sick, and that someone (Jamie? Tywin?) spirited him away. Remember she said they wouldn’t let her see him after he died? Because he didn’t. My money is on Jamie having been unable to bear the sight of a child that proved Cersei had had sex with Robert. Gendry is a full blooded Baratheon, and he is the third head of the dragon. Stark, Baratheon, and Targaryen are all represented if only they can work together to save humanity.
All of which means there’s every chance that poor Arya could wind up the Queen, which is that LAST thing she wants. 
But Bronn has seen the wight. He knows his dream castle is no use to him if he’s afraid to leave and all the other people are ice zombies. He’s also seen what the dragons can do, so he knows Cersei’s is the losing team.
Also, that’s what he’d say if Tyrion asked him to do it. He doesn’t trust Cersei. He knows what it would take for Tyrion to make such a request, and that it would be best to act quickly if something had driven him that far.
And, in the end, I think he likes Tyrion more than he admits. Bronn and Pod will stand by Tyrion until the end. Not sure what decision Pod would make if he had to choose between Brienne and Tyrion, but then I don’t think either of them would ever put him in that position.
No, how could they do that? They were shown to have exactly three ships after Yara’s rescue. And Yara says “Euron can’t defend the Iron Islands, not if he is in King’s Landing with all of his men and his ships.” Theon either rescued Yara, and spirited her away by small boat where he had a few waiting ships, or they somehow managed to hijack three ships from the fleet. I think the first is more likely. Theon couldn’t possibly have had enough men to have taken over the entire fleet.
How do you get this admittedly-interesting theory to fit with the “three children” prophecy Cersei received from Maggy the Frog?
FWIW when they showed him ride into town in the beginning I said, “Oh Pod is here”. It was only when they showed him working the forge I realized it was Gendry. Now I’m not sure if we saw Pod but he should be there.