Winter is Coming (GoT is back)

[Mr. Morden]

The Season 5 soundtrack is out.  I don't think we've heard these two tracks on the show yet, so they're probably in the finale (the latter one has got to be the end credits music, doesn't it?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdjfNK4D81s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxtO2mKY6QI

[Mr. Morden]

This is great:

[Mr. Morden]

The "previously on" segment that'll play before the credits at the beginning of the finale has leaked onto Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1btOBSM9mrk

It hints at the possible return of a character we haven't seen this season, so people who really want to go into the episode cold might want to skip this when they watch it.

[Mr. Morden]

The "previously on" segment that'll play before the credits at the beginning of the finale has leaked onto Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1btOBSM9mrk

It hints at the possible return of a character we haven't seen this season, so people who really want to go into the episode cold might want to skip this when they watch it.

Didn't watch, but please don't let them waste precious finale screen-time on Hordor & co.

If we're going to have a missing character come back, I'm pulling for Hot Pie.

[Mr. Morden]

So I guess that whole "War of the Five Kings"…Balon is now the only one of the five who's still alive.

[Mr. Morden]

I can't get over how dumb the Sand Snakes plot was (thanks Obara).

I suppose we're going to get more of them next season in some capacity?  I doubt we'll see much of Dorne itself next year, since I don't think anyone left there is significant enough to serve as a point-of-view character.  But I imagine that Ellaria and/or the Sand Snakes will flee Dorne and infect other storylines, since staying there will risk re-arrest and execution by Doran?

[Mr. Morden]

Comic Con is on this week, and I guess there's going to be a Game of Thrones panel later today.  Last year, they used Comic Con to make a slew of casting announcements for Season 5, so maybe we'll get something for Season 6 this year.

[Mr. Morden]

I still don't get why he led Sansa to Winterfell instead of keeping her safe in the Vale. Does he plan on befriending the Boltons? If so, why then tell Cersei he's going to raise the Vale's army against them? I know Littlefinger likes chaos, but even for him this plan makes no sense.

I think things are actually set up perfectly for Baelish to seize the North. Think about it: John (probably) gets resurrected and takes command of the Wildlings and summons some minor Northern Houses to march on Winterfell to get revenge against House Bolton. As the Wildling/Northern forces approach Winterfell, Baelish moves in with the Knights of the Vale into Winterfell to "support" the Boltons.

I'm also assuming that Jon will be resurrected, but I don't think that he'll then march on Winterfell.  I feel like it would be a cheat if Jon is resurrected just to do some stuff that his Stark self would care about, like driving the Boltons from Winterfell.  I'd prefer that undead-Jon shifts to "bigger picture" issues, presumably related directly to the White Walker invasion.  Maybe he'll have to flee north from Castle Black, and runs into Bran or Benjen?  Something like that.

I'm also guessing that whatever role he may have in Season 6, it'll be fairly limited, so that they can film it within a week or so.  It's the only way that HBO can maintain any plausible deniability about Kit's return whatsoever.  If he only has to film for a week, then he can "go on vacation" and go off the grid, secretly filming something in Belfast, that they can deny up until he appears onscreen in Season 6.

But if he has to film for months and months, like he has for every season up until now, then there's no way they can keep that a secret.  In which case, why are they even trying?

[Mr. Morden]

Having the White-walkers win would be kind of bullsh**t to because it would look like lazy writing, an easy way to cop out of having to write an actual ending in which the plot is relevant. It would be like if someone was writing an Alternate History and just as things were coming to a climax they post " ...and then an asteroid hits the earth and everyone dies. The end."

They could always win in Westeros, and human civilization could continue in Essos.

In any case, we saw in Episode 4x04, how that lead White Walker "infected" that last Craster baby, turning him into a WW.  As far as we know, all of the WWs might be former humans, no?  Maybe the infection, turning them into WWs, is what will actually save humanity from extinction?  Could be an I Am Legend ending, where the script is flipped, and the Infected become the new human race.

[Mr. Morden]

I haven't read the books, but since the show has now caught up to the books, I went and spoiled myself on some of the missing details covered in the books, and started looking at some theories online about the "big picture" aspects of the story.

And I have to say, the sci-fi theory put forth in this Preston Jacobs video from 6:40 until the end has to win some kind of all time award for maximum amount of tinfoil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jIfYj_guPo

[Mr. Morden]

*bump*

Season 6 is coming up in two months, and we just got a slew of new pics from the upcoming season (obviously looking at this spoils which characters will appear in the new season...some of whom we haven't seen for a while):

http://watchersonthewall.com/20-new-official-game-of-thrones-photos-released-from-season-6/

[Mr. Morden]

The trailer for the new season is out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuH3tJPiP-U

[Mr. Morden]

Looks like Peter Dinklage will host Saturday Night Live on April 2nd.

[Mr. Morden]

Some new clips from the early episodes of Season 6:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWhysppFOQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6sobj8azzQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlCFXpbX6eU

[Mr. Morden]

The Dorne plot makes no sense.  I get the feeling that when mapping out the story for Season 6, the writers realized that there wasn't time to keep going on the Dorne story anymore, so they wrote this in to truncate that storyline greatly.  I just can't believe that they really thought that this is where they'd be taking it back when that plot started last year (or in Season 4, if you want to count the introduction of Oberyn).

The Sansa plot also doesn't make much sense.  The Boltons had hundreds (thousands?) of horse riders, even after the battle with Stannis.  Even if Sansa and Theon survive the fall uninjured, they should barely be able to get anywhere before those riders catch up with them.  But only a handful make it to them, just a few minutes before Brienne does?  OK....

[Mr. Morden]

Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor, but I found the Preston Jacobs recap of this episode to be hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JxoX0Y59yQ

[Mr. Morden]

On the "Making of Game of Thrones" blog, they show the prop letter that was used for the scene where Doran receives a message from King's Landing:



Apparently Jaime can't spell "nieces".

[Mr. Morden]

- Castle Black: Thorne and co. break down the door, Edd and the Wildlings arrive and kill the mutineers.  Thorne gets killed in a boss battle with Tormund and Ghost turns Olly into a Kid's Meal.  The episode ends with Jon being resurrected somehow (maybe Melisandre kills herself in a "only death can pay for life" type thing).  If this happens, the last shot will be Jon's eyes opening...and then Castle Black probably won't be in episode three at all (a good way to build suspense and HBO seems to enjoy that sort of weapons grade trolling).  As with the Pyke prediction, I'm not as confident about Jon coming back b/c there may not be room in the episode.

Kill the mutineers?  Don't the mutineers consist of all but about 5 Nightswatchmen?  So will the NW be completely done once this battle is over?  Castle Black will then be occupied by....the 5 or so NW left, plus a bunch of Wildlings?

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Wait, you mean send Brienne away right now?  Wouldn't she want to keep Brienne around until she (Sansa) is somewhere a bit safer?  Also, wouldn't she think that Arya was in the Vale rather than the Riverlands?  The Brienne vs. Hound fight was in the Vale, right?

I haven't read the books, but I understand that San/San is kind of a thing in the books.  Do you think Sansa will have any reaction to the fact that Brienne (apparently) killed the Hound?

[Mr. Morden]

The next three episodes are titled:

Oathbreaker
Book of the Stranger
The Door

I know they like to use titles that have multiple meanings, but I’m going to guess right now that one of the meanings for “The Door” will be the door between the 3-eyed raven’s cave and the outside world.  The door leading into the room where the dragons are kept is another possibility.  Those would both be literal doors, but there'll presumably be a metaphorical meaning as well.

Also, I feel like something’s gone off the rails with regard to which story threads the show is following in King’s Landing.  Isn’t Kevan supposed to be Hand of the King now?  We haven’t seen him in a single scene in which he has dialog since he last returned from Casterly Rock, even though he’s supposed to kind of be in charge now.  And AFAIK, Olenna should still be in town trying to get her grandchildren out of jail, but we haven’t seen her in ages either.  What is the disposition of Kevan towards the Sparrows, and is Olenna also trying to talk to Kevan about the Sparrows, etc.?  What is going on with regard to who has power now in KL?  I wish we’d get a scene or two clarifying that.

[Mr. Morden]

Also, if enough time has passed since last season for Walda to go through an entire 9 month pregnancy, then shouldn't we start seeing Gilly's baby graduate from "baby" to "toddler" pretty soon?  That kid was born about three years ago!

[Mr. Morden]

Assuming Sansa, Brienne, and Pod make it to Castle Black OK, what if anything is going to happen between Brienne and Davos/Melisandre, given that the latter two worked for Stannis, and Mel is even responsible for killing Renly?

The questioning of Arya about her past and her family got me to thinking about whether there’s any kind of hidden motive here on the part of the Faceless Men.  Will we ultimately find out that they took an interest in her at least in part because of her family?  Do they have a special interest in say, either Jon or Bran, because they’re “special” (in different ways)?

Also, regarding Arya’s “list”…

Note that this is the second episode in which we got Arya’s abbreviated list. She used to include folks like Ilyn Payne and “the Red Woman”. However, in Episode 5×02, when she was stuck outside the House of Black and White, she kept repeating her list over and over again, and it was this abbreviated list:

Cersei
Walder Frey
The Mountain
Meryn Trant

Now that Meryn Trant is dead, she only includes the other three names. I don’t think it’s an accident that the writers decided to trim the list to these names. I’m assuming that the writers decided to retcon her list to match up with their plan for the endgame of the show. When Arya returns to Westeros, she’s going to try to kill those remaining people one by one. She already got Meryn Trant, and I’m assuming that Walder Frey will be next (maybe at the end of this season).

[Mr. Morden]

On another topic…what to make of Ned “hearing” Bran call to him in the past?  Is this a hint that they’re actually going to resolve the White Walker conflict with time travel or something?  Bran goes several thousand years into the past, whispers an important message to the First Men, and that fixes everything, the end?

[Mr. Morden]

My reaction to what happened to Shaggydog (Rickon's direwolf):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWaXbCsh0po

[Mr. Morden]

Is there any significance to the fact that in the flashback, Arthur Dayne said “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come”, the exact same line spoken by Mance Rayder to Stannis before he (Mance) was executed?

[Mr. Morden]

Is there any significance to the fact that in the flashback, Arthur Dayne said “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come”, the exact same line spoken by Mance Rayder to Stannis before he (Mance) was executed?

There has to be. It's the second time they repeated a line in a flashback, and this is only the second flashback.

Is "the wars to come" about the White Walkers?  Assuming that, as I think we're all expecting, Lyanna is giving birth to Jon in the tower, did Rhaegar know that the kid would be some kind of child of destiny against the White Walkers, and he told Dayne as much?