Winter is Coming (GoT is back)

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I actually liked the first four episodes a lot and they really work as television, but I'm pretty sure book purists will be up in arms with many of the changes.

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I'm not sure of what to say after tonight. I really liked the chapter up until the end, but that final scene was... Well...

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I wouldn't say it was shocking (after all, it isn't as nearly as bad as what happened to Jeyne Poole in the books), I'm just surprised they actually went with that route for Sansa. I understand why they cut the Vale storyline and from a narrative point of view it makes sense (specially in light of what might happen aftewards), but I suppose I wanted to believe the whole situation would be different.

But then again, as Ramsay might say, I obviously haven't been paying attention...

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I had my doubts about what might happen in tonight's episode, but that was simply magnificent.

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Or maybe I'm just reaching. As my dad pointed out to me, Stannis has never been a sympathetic character. He already killed his own brother, so why not his daughter too?

This. I've always wondered why some people seem to forget about Renly's murder. Objectively speaking, Stannis has already killed his brother and actively tried to kill his nephew over his quest for the throne (and several other members of his family if you count Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella), so what happened tonight doesn't really come out of nowhere (not to mention that the "Inside the Episode" video heavily implies that this is actually a GRRM plot point).

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I liked the finale in many ways (save for Myrcella, I thought that was an awful idea), but I can't help but to wonder the season number might actually be eight instead of seven. After all, they did not resolve several of the cliffhangers of ADWD, and the casting for Season 6 seems to suggest that some forgotten FeastDance characters might indeed appear on the show.

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There are people who don't?

Despite being a fan of the Targaryens, I actually don't. While I know there are certain historical parallels and this appears to finally move the plot ahead in some regards, it always felt a bit cheap to me to have a Prince (and that particular sort of Prince) appearing literally out of nowhere while Daenerys's storyline continued to be... well, a slow mess.

Given the time constraints, number of characters and so on, I'd say it makes sense to leave that particular plotline out of the series (although of course we have no way of knowing how important he might or might not be to the end game).

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So...

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Now that was an episode I throughly enjoyed!

Above all, the anti-climax that Roose Bolton's death represents felt particularly satisfying to me, but there really was a lot to enjoy.

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I said it before and I'll say it again, Ser Kevan is a really underused character (and it was great to see Pycelle and Qyburn back again).

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I may be alone in this, but I didn't find the final scene of this episode to be dumb or cringe-worthy, if anything, I considered to be far better than the dragon-ex-machina I thought they were going to pull.

To be frank, anything that advances Daenerys's storyline and finally makes her get the hell out of Essos is fine by me.

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That was a very powerful episode, in my opinion.

If there's something to truly enjoy from Season 6 is that, finally, the plot is moving ahead.

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I must say, the Lion and the Rose game we played some time ago is looking more and more amusing given the revelations and events of Season Six.

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Why did King Tommen refer to his mother as 'Cersei Lannister'?  Wouldn't she be 'Cersei Baratheon' just as he is 'Tommen Baratheon'?  Was that intentional or just a mistake by the writers?

No, I feel like they've always referred to her as Cersei Lannister on the show.

In the books too. In general there doesn't seem to be a consistent rule about whether women use married names in Westeros.

Indeed, Catelyn and Lysa are referred both as Tully and as their married names of Stark or Arryn, Selyse tends to go as Selyse Baratheon, and women like Margaery Tyrell and Elia Martell go by their original names. So some take their married names, but it doesn't seem to be a truly widespread custom.

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The character motivations and some dumb moves of their own still bother me (although let's face it, Littlefinger was not exactly wrong when he said "quick tempers, slow minds"), but it would be dishonest to say I disliked the episode. Oddly enough, it was very satisfactory to me, particularly Slaver's Bay.

That said, I don't think any episode or on-screen battle will ever top "Blackwater".

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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.

In all modesty, I'm the one who brought constitutional federalism to Westeros.

Over my dead body

I really need to make that Clash of Kings remake as soon as time allows, xD

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We can say "it's not going to happen on the books" all we want, but the problem is that we don't actually have the books.

I can and do blame D&D for inexcusable disasters like Show Dorne, but when all you have is a vague outline of the endgame for such a complex plotline one can hardly blame them for some of the story decisions they had to make, particularly when we have nothing to compare them to.

So since the Show and the Books have diverged a long time ago I think it's best if you judge them separatedly, and in doing that I didn't found this season to be bad at all, indeed I found it better than Season 5 and Season 6.