Winter is Coming (GoT is back)

[RaphaelDLG]

I really enjoyed the Arya storyline last episode (FINALLY! after months of marking time)... and then here we go with this implausible getting stabbed in the vital organs 8 million times, falling off a bridge and almost drowning and walking a quarter mile and somehow miraculously not dying.  Bullsh**t, and this show early on knew better.

Also, there's no way the waif would have just let her stay under water for a few seconds without coming back to check on her/finish the job.  Way too amateur of a move.

[RaphaelDLG]

I really enjoyed the Arya storyline last episode (FINALLY! after months of marking time)... and then here we go with this implausible getting stabbed in the vital organs 8 million times, falling off a bridge and almost drowning and walking a quarter mile and somehow miraculously not dying.  Bullsh**t, and this show early on knew better.

Also, there's no way the waif would have just let her stay under water for a few seconds without coming back to check on her/finish the job.  Way too amateur of a move.

As I said on the last page: The scene is in some ways so ridiculous that it leaves me to wonder if the FM are pulling some kind of illusion here, for reasons that'll be revealed in the next ep.

Yeah, actually now that you say that, I thought she was having a nightmare for a good thirty seconds or so.

[RaphaelDLG]

A friend pretty much spoiled the entire ninth episode for me  So sadly, no predictions this week.

Huh? Do you know a screenwriter or something?

No, but apparently it got leaked online by some guy who was an extra on the Winterfell set for the filming of the battle and my friend read it and told me who dies before I could explain that while I love speculation and pre-season spoilers, I don't like hearing the super-detailed spoilers that tend to come out while the show is on the air.

It's gonna be Davos isn't it?

No way.  Davos' arc isn't remotely close to being finished, and I think Davos is one of the characters who isn't so emotionally damaged that I could easily see him surviving the series.

My bets for episode 9 deaths are that two or more of Tormund, Wun Wun, Rickon, Ramsey dies.

[RaphaelDLG]

My bets for episode 9 deaths are that two or more of Tormund, Wun Wun, Rickon, Ramsey dies.

I think Tormund is safe because he's the only Wildling we know.  They need a "face" for the Wildlings going forward, and if Tormund was going to die, they probably would have already introduced a backup option for leader.

I am wondering about Davos and Mel though.  Since the trailer makes it look like Davos finds out about Shireen, how does he react?  Do either Davos or Mel die, or will they actually learn to coexist, even with Davos finding out about Shireen?

I dunno, I think those are great points and questions.  I'm 1,000,000% sure that Melisandre will die before the end of the series.  It's possible Davos could go with her.  Davos will find out this episode, and he will be PISSED.  It's probably too early in the series for her to go, though - it's possible her death/a confrontation will be set up that will play out in season 7.1.

[RaphaelDLG]

My bets for episode 9 deaths are that two or more of Tormund, Wun Wun, Rickon, Ramsey dies.

I think Tormund is safe because he's the only Wildling we know.  They need a "face" for the Wildlings going forward, and if Tormund was going to die, they probably would have already introduced a backup option for leader.

I am wondering about Davos and Mel though.  Since the trailer makes it look like Davos finds out about Shireen, how does he react?  Do either Davos or Mel die, or will they actually learn to coexist, even with Davos finding out about Shireen?

I dunno, I think those are great points and questions.  I'm 1,000,000% sure that Melisandre will die before the end of the series.  It's possible Davos could go with her.  Davos will find out this episode, and he will be PISSED.  It's probably too early in the series for her to go, though - it's possible her death/a confrontation will be set up that will play out in season 7.1.

Melisandre did say that she saw visions of herself walking through Winterfell, with the Bolton banners having fallen to the ground, or something like that.  Also, back in Season 3, she told Arya that they'd meet again.  So I assume she survives this season.  Davos, I don't know.

Maybe Mel does die in Season 7 though, and her role gets taken over by Thoros.

Incidentally, speaking of the BwB, now that the Hound appears to be marching north with the BwB, does this spell trouble for Littlefinger?

By which I mean....let's say Littlefinger helps the Starks take Winterfell, and keeps working with them into next season, while scheming behind their backs.  The one thing that could screw up his plans would be if Sansa and Jon found out about the fact that he betrayed their father to Joffrey back in Season 1.  Luckily for him, most of the people who would know about that are dead, or (like Cersei) busy with other things and/or not seen as trustworthy by the Starks.  But there is one person who was in the throne room when the City Watch turned on Ned, and thus might have some understanding of Littlefinger's treachery, who *maybe* Sansa would listen to: The Hound.  And it looks like he might be in a position to reunite with her next season.

Re: Melisandre, I just don't know what role she has to play anymore, other than more exposition about a prophecy that Jon, Bran, Dany, Tyrion, etc will fulfill.  Your memory of her words is good, I imagine she will stick around for a little while then.

Your point about the hound is great as well.  I think, thematically, Littlefinger's arc is to get dangerously close to "winning" the game only to be screwed either 1) by Sansa, the person he trained and took advantage of/manipulated or 2) by someone incidental, like Sweetrobin, and end up dying at the end/towards the end of the series.  I think you might be right about the Hound revealing Littlefinger's betrayal - if the Hound kills LF, though, it'll be in a way where Sansa very much has agency over his death and goes from a little bird to a powerful queen.

[RaphaelDLG]

Predictions for next week:

- Cersei's trial goes badly, tommen probably doesn't yet die, I think Cersei lives until next season where she tries to use wildfire after tommen dies and gets killed by jamie
- Littlefinger tries to manipulate Sansa into marrying him
- Bran finds out about Jon's parentage.  Jon finds out from Bran when he goes into the crypts, or at least recieves a clue
- Obviously Davos tries to turn Jon against Melisandre after finding out about Shireen, idk what will happen next
- POSSIBLY Arya shows up at the twins and kills walder frey.  Idk why jamie is there, but he will survive

[RaphaelDLG]

I actually think, though Jon should have listened to Sansa and been more emotionally prepared for Rickon's death/potential manipulation by Ramsay, you guys are incorrect about LF forces.

1) If the Knights of the Vale had been there at the start of the battle, instead of toying with Jon's tiny force, Ramsay would have just holed up in Winterfell and be way less vulnerable.

2) Sansa had no idea whether or not LF was actually going to show up

Agree that someone from the castle would have seen the knights of the vale coming.

[RaphaelDLG]

Jon's fcking charge against the Bolton army is unbelievably dumb and actually immoral. He was taking an action that would kill his men just because he let his emotions control him. Pathetic.

I think this is entirely intentional - his resurrection took away a part of his humanity, making him far more vicious than he used to be

Let's not fall into the trap of rationalizing lazy writing   Anyway, my biggest problem with all this is why on earth didn't Sansa just tell Jon the Vale knights were coming.

Because she didn't know if they were coming or not.

[RaphaelDLG]

Eh, I disagree somewhat, and would say that the narrative arc is just fine and could potentially have incredible emotional resonance, but that the main problem is the pacing and writing within episodes.

1) Most of the plotlines in seasons 5 and 6 have been plodding and padded with a lot of filler

2) The filler that has been included recently is stupid and doesn't expand on the character's motivations/emotions the way wonderful scenes from seasons 1-4 did. 

Consider useless scenes like Tyrion telling jokes with Missandei, the guy sticking his finger up somebody's anus, Arya doing Karate kid for the 18,000 time, anything with Sam and Gilly.  Do these scenes do anything to tell us about who the characters are and expand upon their internal feelings and motivations?  No, as inartfully written as they are, they are merely repetitive uninteresting attempts to "check in" with slow plotlines to remind us that characters are there that tell us nothing interesting about who the characters are that we don't already know.

Compare to scenes like Robert and Cersei talking about Lyanna and their marriage in Season 1, Tyrion drinking with Bronn and Shae, Littlefinger and Varys.  Not only are these scenes entertaining and electric despite not really advancing the plot, they tell us about the world that the characters live in and their feelings and motivations.  The show has lost its ability to do the requisite check-in scenes well and to put us inside the minds of the characters.

I would say the biggest example of this is Stannis.  The progression from him to a doting father to a cold daughter burning bastard was unbelievable; the show needed to show the desperation in his mind or at least the delusion to make me buy that scene at all.  It just didn't make any sense and was totally unsatisfying.  I'm okay with Stannis being a bad guy, but you have to show me how that happens, and D&D didn't.

I thought this episode was really good, especially compared to the rest of the past two seasons, but I feel like the show has done a pretty bad job of putting us inside Jon's head since his resurrection.  If we have to not check in with minor plotlines like sam or arya for a few episodes to have one or two more intimate scenes with jon, so be it. 

The one character-driven plotline I have enjoyed this season was Jamie and Brienne in the riverlands; I thought that interlude was pretty well done all around.

The show is wisely and by necessity trimming characters, but it isn't developing the characters that it has left and getting us inside their heads in the way that show did powerfully at its start.

The joys of this season have mainly been the times the plot has advanced and the subsequent revelations of story elements that were previously mysteries.

[RaphaelDLG]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember her receiving a return letter from Littlefinger letting her know that he had heard her request and was coming

[RaphaelDLG]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember her receiving a return letter from Littlefinger letting her know that he had heard her request and was coming

But she could've told Jon and they could've then waited for a reply.  At the least, it was highly unlikely that LF wasn't gonna show up at all and I feel like she has to have known that by this point.

The reason why she didn't bother telling Jon seemed to me to be because she didn't have a ton of optimism that they were coming.  If she would have known, I think she would have obviously told him to wait.

It's probably good that she didn't, though, because Ramsay may have tried a much more sensible, non-sadistic, conservative strategy like holing up in Winterfell while giving Jon and the Vale the finger as they fail miserably to penetrate the fortress.

[RaphaelDLG]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember her receiving a return letter from Littlefinger letting her know that he had heard her request and was coming

But she could've told Jon and they could've then waited for a reply.  At the least, it was highly unlikely that LF wasn't gonna show up at all and I feel like she has to have known that by this point.

The reason why she didn't bother telling Jon seemed to me to be because she didn't have a ton of optimism that they were coming.  If she would have known, I think she would have obviously told him to wait.

It's probably good that she didn't, though, because Ramsay may have tried a much more sensible, non-sadistic, conservative strategy like holing up in Winterfell while giving Jon and the Vale the finger as they fail miserably to penetrate the fortress.

Nah, Wun Wun would've just broken down the gates.  There are plenty of cases where D&D and Bryan Cogman have done a great job.  This was not one of them.  We shouldn't bend over backward to rationalize lazy or weak writing.

Possibly.  Wouldn't Ramsay have had way more archers and prepped siege material and just shot Wun Wun in the eyeball eight times before he got to the gate or dropped scalding water and/or a rock on his head?  He almost literally had no men or archers left after the knights of the vale came in to wipe everyone out.

[RaphaelDLG]

The Simpsoning of GoT has begun.

Every show has an off season, realative to its typical level of quality, so I don't think we can go quite that far.  That said, the only characters left that I'm really invested in are Arya, the High Sparrow and Walder Frey.  If all three die (and two probably will next week), then I'll probably stop watching.

That's an interesting list of characters to be emotionally invested in, esp Walder Frey LOLOL.

IMO season 5 was definitely worse if we are looking for the "off season."

[RaphaelDLG]

See, for me, Season 1 is the best, because it has great world building, characterization, and so many characters that I love get screen time.  My top 5 might include Bobby B, Ned, Bronn, Syrio, Varys - and they all get a ton of scenes in season 1.

In Season 5, I felt that most of the character scenes were weak, the plot was meandering, and the Dorne subplot was incomprehensible.

And I agree that Jonathan Pryce has been electric the past two seasons.

I think, though Game of Thrones has great set design, landscapes, and costumes that really help establish a sense of place, the single best aspect of the show is the acting of the character actors in the supporting cast.

You have Charles Dance, Mark Addy, Jonathan Pryce, Conleth Hill, Iain Glen, Diana Rigg, Stephen Dillane, and literally on and on and on.

The main cast is a slightly different story - I think Peter Dinklage is good but overrated, Kit Harrington was pretty bad at the beginning of the series, and Emilia Clarke has been bad up until very recently.  Lena Headey and NCW are very solid.

[RaphaelDLG]

I can't believe I had a "top 5" without Stannis; he's possibly my favorite character.  I've watched the Stannis the Mannis the Movie hour and a half like three whole times before it was taken off youtube.

1) Ned
2) Stannis
3) Bobby B
4) Bronn
5) Varys
6) Syrio
7) Jon
Jamie
9) Davos
10) Jorah (I don't really like the character, just the acting is incredible, especially that one scene "after I have forgotten my mothers face, I will remember")

Hon. mention:  Really enjoy Tywin, Littlefinger scenes even though I hate them.  Lady Olenna is really good, as is the Hound, who could work his way up into the list.  I mean, the honorable mention category could be like 50 people long, as many characters as there are on the show.

It was really entertaining for me when Roose would talk to Ramsay in an extremely patronizing way, I always LMAO during those scenes. 

As far as this season goes, I'm really enjoying Qyburn acting like a creepy asshole while bumming around with Cersei and Frankenmountain; if he keeps it up, I might have to add him to my top 10 list.

[RaphaelDLG]

I'm trying to think of whether there's any chance of Bran not reuniting with Jon and Sansa in Winterfell next season.  With Arya, it's easy to imagine, since I think she's most likely going to go south to finish her list.  But with Bran, it seems pretty likely that he'll be back in Winterfell.  What I would imagine happening is that Bran and Meera go to Castle Black, and then Edd fills them in on current events, and sends word to Jon in Winterfell that Bran's alive.

The only alternative I can think of would be if they don't go to Castle Black at all.  If Meera can find them a horse (I can't see her carrying Bran around everywhere...they need a horse), maybe she takes Bran home with her, and we get to see Howland Reed.

With Arya, I'd bet on her going south rather than north.  Though she might run into other characters in the Riverlands first.  Possibly the Hound, possibly Melisandre, possibly Nymeria...but the character I'm really hoping she runs into again is Hot Pie.

How can Bran hang out with Edd when his arm mark brought the whole wall down?

Also, FYI the couple in the seven kingdoms I'm most shipping is Bran and Meera.

Question:  Littlefinger seems to know that there's more to Lyanna's story than meets the eye... will he go digging and find out R+L=J, then expose it to try to empower Sansa (for his benefit) and topple Jon as KINGINDANORF?!?

[RaphaelDLG]

How can Bran hang out with Edd when his arm mark brought the whole wall down?

What do you mean?  His arm mark hasn't brought the wall down.

That was tongue in cheek - I predict that Bran will accidentally invalidate the magic protections of the wall by passing through it while still having the Night King's mark on his arm.  I don't see how it otherwise comes down in the show, with no horn or anything. 

I think it's foreshadowed to go down, and that the numerology is foreshadowing that Edd will be the last Lord Commander.

[RaphaelDLG]

How can Bran hang out with Edd when his arm mark brought the whole wall down?

What do you mean?  His arm mark hasn't brought the wall down.

That was tongue in cheek - I predict that Bran will accidentally invalidate the magic protections of the wall by passing through it while still having the Night King's mark on his arm.  I don't see how it otherwise comes down in the show, with no horn or anything. 

I think it's foreshadowed to go down, and that the numerology is foreshadowing that Edd will be the last Lord Commander.

That just seems like an utterly stupid thing for the writers to do.  Would the implication then be that if Bran had never gone north of the Wall to meet up with the 3-Eyed Raven in the first place, then the Wall never would have come down, and the White Walkers would have been forever trapped north of the Wall?  I hope it doesn't work out like that, because it undermines the threat of the White Walkers, if their only hope of being any threat to Westeros relies on their adversary being negligent.

I would also note that while Benjen said that the Wall wards off the dead, the White Walkers themselves aren't dead.  Just the zombies that they control.  The White Walkers could make it past the Wall on their own without knocking it down, and then start raising up a new army on the other side.

Is it your interpretation that the walkers could make it through the children's protective field if only they knew where the hideout was?  Or was it that bran had to be marked before they could go into the 3-eyed raven's hideout?

[RaphaelDLG]

A friend of mine suggested another possibility; what if Cersei's end is facilitated by... Jaime?  He already killed one king for merely threatening to do what Cersei just did.

I think this is likely what will happen, and I will be disappointed if things don't end this way.  I think that Jaime will complete his heroic arc by killing Cersei to protect the smallfolk (presumably from another batch of wildfire, and thus fulfilling the valonqar prophecy) and then either kill himself or die heroically shortly thereafter.

[RaphaelDLG]

Personally, I don't think Arya becoming a psycho kill bill revenge killer on a spree is a very satisfying ending to her arc, though I did like that she got to take out walder frey.  She should be a deadly warrior, but one in service of her family or some cause higher than revenge.

I think her character is fundamentally about not feeling at home with her family and not being comfortable being a lady and then, after realizing that she can never be "no one," coming back home and somehow making peace with who she is or something like that, though I don't have any idea where that leads.  I think there's a good possibility her ending is one of the bittersweet ones.

[RaphaelDLG]

Now that R+L=J is official, I’m wondering anew whether the writers gave Sean Bean any clues as to Jon Snow’s origin story when they were filming Season 1.  In this clip for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEB5t1qRdmY

Between Sean Bean’s acting around 1:10 when Robert brings up Jon’s mother, and his acting around 2:25, when Robert brings up what “Rhaegar did to your sister”, it seems clear that some kind of instruction (from either writers or director) was given to Sean Bean to play it a certain way that isn’t obvious from the dialog alone.  But how much they actually told him…I don’t know.

Sean Bean accidentally said, "well, obviously, he's not my son..." in an interview several years ago and then had to walk it back.  I'm sure he was told, but if he wasn't, he was playing it like he thought it was R+L=J.

A more interesting question would be whether Aiden Gillen knew more than had been revealed, because in the crypt scene with Sansa, Littlefinger seemed to think the assertion that Lyanna was raped was dubious.

[RaphaelDLG]

Am I the only one who thought Margaery was one of the show's less interesting characters?  She's really not that apt at political maneuvering when push comes to shove (she was really pretty dependent on Olenna, tbh).  Cersei steamrolled her in season five (or rather the High Sparrow steamrolled Cersei and Margaery).

Yeah, I think she's hot and a really nice person, probably the only person in KL I'd root for, but she was WAY less interesting than the heavy hitters of Pope Sanders, Cersei, Olenna.

***

And Antonio, if you thought that this story was going to have a happy ending, then you haven't been paying attention.

[RaphaelDLG]

Yeah, I would bet that Daenerys isn't queen at the end of the story, and would in fact put my money on the seven kingdoms as we know it (as a multi-national monarchy) not existing.

I'm 1000% the dragons will not survive the series.  I'm unsure if Daenerys will go mad or not, but I'd bet on her at least momentarily losing her senses because it's been so heavily foreshadowed.

Margaery was like Ned, Robb, Oberyn - upright, and competent, but not competent enough to survive her precarious position in a world where life is characteristically tenuous.  Though I liked her, I personally thought it was great that she died and part of the flow of the story, NOT the cheap shock value/titillation that D&D do indeed sometimes lean on as their crutch.

The episode wasn't full of the rich characterization scenes that you saw in earlier seasons, but to be honest, seasons 5 and 6 have been almost devoid of that type of stuff in general.

I really liked this episode, and saw it as a very glossy, tense, visually and aurally beautiful payoff to a long season of marching in place foreshadowing - D&D at their best, in other words, and a great cap to an uneven season.

[RaphaelDLG]

I think the best ending to the series would be magic destroyed (including WW and dragons) and the climate balance restored, but at physical and emotional cost. 

Also, I would like to see the "wheel" of aristocratic male domination broken, and don't think Daenerys as ruler or even Jon as ruler would be a good ending - I think they should make their world more modern and egalitarian like the NW, and both maybe not die, but finish out the story as emotionally wounded characters.