No sense in dancing around the subject. HBO just released their first trailer for Season 7, so its time to crank this bad boy of a thread up for some fun times this year.
Lets do what we do best and over-analyze the hell out of this 108 second long video.
Season 7 begins on July 16th.
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Comments
Well.....I just went from six to midnight....
I literally was just going to post this.
So...Season 7 will be the battle for the Iron Throne and Season 8 will be the war against the White Walkers?
Season 7? Man, they really are milking this whole Bilbo Baggins thing.
Sure but they've really sped it up last few season atleast they're not slowing down like the walking dead
So she was kneeling on the Island right? Her first step onto Westeros territory.
Yeah that looked like they ended up landing at Dragonstone, which would make sense. Coming full circle for her as its where she was born before getting taken to Essos.
This season will hard to watch for me...considering I watched the first 6 seasons in about a month and a half.
I'm on season 2. I enjoy it but if the comment above isn't sarcasm (and they truly haven't battled for the throne or fought the white walkers in seasons 2-6), then I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy investing that much time lol.
It's worth it.
You will invest that much time and you will like it!
uhhhh
yeah, the white walker battle for the throne was... ummm....
There's a lot of boobs
Boobs? Tyrion Lannister?
They made that quote into a shirt it's my favorite thing to wear
The battle for the throne is pretty much ongoing every season. The White Walkers are going to be the culmination of the series.
Watch it. Do it.
I would suggest never opening this or any other GoT thread again if you're only on season 2. Also probably best to just get off the internet altogether other than the window you're streaming from
You all got legs. Thanks for the insight, and warnings. I shall continue onward...
Side note, have any of you heard about how great the show is from people, then watched it yourself and then judged those other people for liking it? Like your parents or grandparents? I had no idea what it was about but some older relatives talked endlessly about its greatness. Then when I watched it and realized how much gore and T&A is in it, I'm like "really?" Never would have thought they'd be into that...
Everyone enjoys T&A...including your grandparents apparently.
There's a good chance they're plugging away at a higher rate than anyone else based on some studies
Well, the kids are out of the house.
Funny you should mention this, I've actually told some of my family NOT to watch it specifically to avoid being the guy getting judged
Not about GoT in particular, but I have definitely had this thought about a Netflix show.
The owner of the agency my wife runs is a great guy, but comes across very straightlaced. He raved about Sense8 on Netflix to the point that we started it. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the show but there are some parts that are risque to say the least. I have always thought him to be a great guy, but see him a little bit differently these days.
On a side note, just finished season 2 of sense8, I love the show
I judge people who don't like it. Does that count?
Let me just tell you that the wick on the powder keg gets lit toward the end of the third season and all hell breaks loose from there. You won't be able to take your eyes off of it except that HBO makes you wait a week.
If this entire mini-season is not just one huge series of battles I will be disappointed.
I am so intrigued as to how the scene with Grey Worm and Missandei goes down.
Probably something like this
I hope TKP readers get this.
Do you like Bailey's? It's creamy!
I do watercolors.
Do you love me? Are you playing those loooove games....with me?
Make an assessment!
I hear there's even a novelization of this season coming out!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
WHAT COULD THAT MEAN THOUGH
I wonder how heavily Beric is involved this season, as he isn't too big of a presence but yet gets a big part of this trailer with his sword.
I hope it's a lot of him and the Brotherhood. They've basically been ignored other than for a handful of episodes and the occasional mention of them by other characters, but I guess that's the way they would prefer it
Azor Ahai??
Am I the only one who reads "Beric Donderrion" as the third line of "the farmer in the dell"?
The hype levels have reached 9000
Edit: Eddard tells Arya that quote in the original AGOT novel after she and Sansa had been fighting. I think it means she's sticking with Jon and hopefully Jon dispatching with Little Finger.
Also the bit at the end with Jon killing the Wight gave me chills.
Sounds like that could be an old saying of the Stark family.
But if I had to guess if it has meaning, I wouldn't get too attached to Bran this season. Feels like his storyline could be close to wrapping up.
Really? I've read a few theories thinking he's the biggest cog in the wheel...like, behind everythinggg. Surely they didn't just him way down this long winded path just to tell Jon who his parents are.
Yeah, most theories I've heard involve Bran vs. Night King as the real end game.
One I rabbit-holed was Bran IS the Night King, which is a little too far fetched for me...but who knows.
It kinda makes sense, the mark slowly turns him just like the greyscale does. There is a theory that he is Bran the builder, and another one that Bran the builder is actually the Night King since they were around in the same time period. It doesn't take much to connect all three of those
I'm not sure if I buy the whole Bran resurrection thing. What's always been unique about Bran is that he's both a greenseer (powers of the Children of the Forest/The Old Gods) and a warg (a power from the First Men). So I suspect some sort of common lineage, but I don't know if it's really the same person, recycled generation after generation. If this was the case, why was Bloodraven/Brynden Rivers ever even necessary? Wouldn't that role always be fulfilled by this generation's version of Bran?
Will definitely be interesting to see how it plays out, though.
Wasn't Bran the Builder building the Wall for a reason though? Not sure he is the Night King.
I think the Night King ia going to manipulate Bran into waking the Ice Dragon though, perhaps by warging into it.
TIL there's an ice dragon
Note that this is a bit spoilerish but IF you look closely in the trailer arya has the little fingers dagger take that as you will it's left me with a few theories
Or is it just Needle?
That was my guess, but there are definitely some fan theories out there that agree with hokienator. I try not to dig too far into that stuff though. The internet is dark and full of spoilers
It's his dagger. There is a magazine photo with the stark children and she clearly is in possession of it
It's made from Valyrian Steel, right?
Yes.
So what's the rundown on who has a Valyrian Steel sword/dagger/pointy thing at this point?
I can only think of these off the top of my head
Littlefinger/Arya
Jon Snow
Beric?
Sam has Heartsbane from House Tarly
Widow's Wail has gone MIA but may have been sent back to Casterly Rock after Joffrey died and kept there until Tommen came of age (interestingly, Danaerys is sacking Casterly Rock in the promos...)
Brienne has Oathkeeper
Oh man, how could I forget Sam stealing Heartsbane? What a boss
I thought that was Dragonstone with the table map of Westeros? Dammit - now I gotta watch it again
She lands at Dragonstone, but both promos that have been released show the Unsullied invading Casterly Rock and fighting Lannister soldiers.
The wiki page on Widow's Wail says it is kept in the Red Keep until Tommen comes of age. So:
Longclaw = Jon
Heartsbane = Sam
Littlefinger's dagger = Arya
Oathkeeper = Brienne
Widow's Wail = In the Red Keep so Cersei and/or Jamie
There is a list of know valyrian steel swords in the books in this LINK. Who is listed as having each sword is not current with the show since the show is now ahead of the books. I think the only ones that have been shown in the show are the few listed above.
Also, Dany is shown at Dragonstone in the trailer, so they have access to lots of Dragonglass which can also kill White Walkers.
And you know three giant dragons.
Imagine what could happen if the Night King manages to kill/turn one of those
Ice dragon vs. Fire dragon!!!
you are wise
I have a theory that since the iron throne was melted together with dragon flame, it's all Valerian steel so at some point they rip that son of a bitch apart
That's a really good theory. And I like the symbolism that the throne represents the strength of the 7 kingdoms. I'm fully expecting the political structure to he significantly different by the end.
How convenient!
Then I can't wait for Littlefinger to meet his maker at the hands of needle.
I just had a glorious vision of Arya face-changing into Ned Stark, cornering Littlefinger for his betrayal, then executing him.
The one who passes the sentence should swing the sword.
Little bit of a size difference
I need a picture storyboard to keep track of everything that has happened.
Think you know GoT? Try this quiz on for size...I couldn't get out of Season 1 and was summarily executed by Joffrey who called me pathetic.
https://admin.leadfamly.com/got/
Made it 17 episodes on my first try. Not too bad.
Man I got through 12. That was hard.
......I got through 32 before I died. I might have a slight obsession
3
SAME!
I would love to see Sam get Heartsbane back to the North and see it end up in the hands of someone like The Hound. I get the distinct feeling that his arc is going to end up with his death surrounded by a lot of dead White Walkers, and really cementing the fact that he was not an "evil" guy, and in fact had a lot more honor than any of the people he served.
My wife has juuust gotten into GOT (she's knocking out season 2 this week) and when I told her he was my favorite character she was perplexed as to why.
When I was reading the books I would give my wife brief summaries of my favorite parts. I always talked about how Jaime was one of my favorite characters, and when she started watching the show she had the same reaction.
I am interested in seeing how/if they bring Arya's wolf, Nymeria, back into the picture. She would be a bigger bad ass with a wolf on the heel.
I wish, but I doubt it. Seemed like they were dropping direwolves like flies last season to cut the CGI budget (gotta make those dragons huge). But man that would be awesome. The direwolves are my favorite characters haha.
Would be awesome, but seems unlikely.
Throughout the books she keeps having dreams (almost like warg-lite moments) of Nymeria running a huge pack of wolves in the Riverlands.
Since they haven't done that in the show, can't imagine they would all of a sudden introduce it.
Do not underestimate HBOs ability to deviate! Lol
Guess who's back...
...back again.
so what happened here? what was the significance? My dog was going crazy at this scene and had to fast forward it.
Get hype. Just a few hours
omgomgomgomgomgomgOMGAH
Valar morghulis
SOB I have an HOA board meeting at 7:30
Dude forget that noise.
I'm on the board so not great look to skip.
Btw, we vacationed in Murrels Inlet at the beginning of June. The inlet itself is really nice, with all those restaurants and bars connected by piers and boardwalks and whatnot. We never made it to Suck Bang Blow unfortunately;)
Pro tip - propose the HOA meets for lunch in the future. Our attendance went from concern over getting enough proxies to have a quorum to finding a big enough venue, and it is almost never a conflict with what I would rather do.
It was just the board. We do the full HOA meetings on Saturday afternoon.
Without the risk of asking for too much info, whereabouts in Murrells Inlet? My MIL lives in Wynbrooke. Anywhere near there?
So she lives off 707 right? I live other side of 707 off Prince Creek Parkway.
Yes. She lives in the community across from Loews. Maybe we could play a round and have a few beers some time.
She just got the Publix in her backyard then. Yep hit me up next time your down.
I was down for vacation a couple of weeks ago with my folks. They live in Market Commons. Played River Club and Caledonia down south while I was there. Also played Tidewater up north and Whispering Pines. I will be down in late October for a weekend.
My wife went to the library and got a GOT cookbook, we had apple cake like they have at the wall for breakfast. We're having honey chicken like they describe Jon eating at Winterfell with Sansa's lemon cakes for desert. She's team Targaryan all the way and will be rocking her Fire & Blood shirt with me sporting my House Tully shirt. Got a bottle of my go to special occasion beer, Blue Mountain Dark Hollow. College football season is the only thing that tops a new GOT season.
LETS GOOOOO
GET HYYYYYYPE
How's the Frey pie?
Pairs well with Frey Wine
Shall we begin?
Is Sam gonna return those books and keys or nah
If he really cared he'd poison the stew and do whatever needs to be done. I know who could help him with that.
if someone had predicted Sansa's evolution to being a powerful female leader several seasons ago they would be a gorram genius.
I don't get it. Jon Snow basically says "you're the lady of the house", then she contradicts him in the meeting, and then says "you're a natural leader". Its like Sansa can't figure out wth she wants to do.
I think it's more like, she contradicted him in front of everyone, and he handled it extremely well. She saw that and respected it.
Plus her eyes were ice blue in that scene. Wowza
She can't make her own point in the meeting AND think he is a natural leader at the same time?
he is a leader. And she did have a good point. these are not related.
I think what the scene really showed is that Sansa is playing the Game, which one would expect from someone that basically learned from watching Cersei or being "taught" by Littlefinger, and that Jon is not approaching things that way.
Jon wasn't going to A) execute kids (which was also a telling point, he clearly knew and understood who it was that he was leading, Sansa doesn't yet. And B) he is a practical leader. He needs fighters to combat the actual biggest threat
While you were spot on in her arc moving towards becoming a powerful female leader, that scene showed that she is neither of those things yet.
haha, we still disagree. You are correct, that scene showed the teachings of Cersei and Littlefinger abutting what she is now being taught by Jon.
Cersei taught her to be a leader means you must be ruthless or be killed.
Littlefinger taught her you must play the chess board or be killed.
Jon is teaching her you must be loyal and noble or be killed.
But Sansa is already a powerful figure or she wouldn't have spoken up at all. That scene showed she has a seat at the table already. A table she will one day be at the head of.
Of course, but it was getting the point of argumentative (with the King). Agree with the post above. If the point was to show her as a strong female leader, it only shows her desire to become one, not that she's arrived there yet.
Well she is obviously not the Queen of the North yet, so not sure what you are expecting there. But certainly other heads of the clans agreed with Sansa by voicing their "ayes" after she spoke. Support of her viewpoint already is proof that she is in some way viewed as a leader.
Yeah, and then they turned around and immediately cheered Jon's decision and the Karstark/Umber pledges of loyalty. My guess is that the houses of the North are going to be yes-men for whichever Stark/Snow speaks last.
that doesn't disprove that Sansa is viewed as a leader. Rather proves that they view both Stark children as leaders.
Honestly, I'm intrigued to read the yelp reviews for the Citadel cafeteria.
The stark girls are bad ass. That scene at the twins was awesome, seeing the dragons come "home", didn't see the Ed Sheeran thing coming not sure if she is going to kill them or not, noticed some interesting things in the flash scenes at the end played in slow motion.
Right now, the Ed Sheeran scene looks completely pointless. I hope the writers don't make it so, but thats what it appears to me for right now.
In a couple episodes, she'll be riding and come across some soldiers practicing in hand to hand combat, and then a loud-mouthed Lanister will have the camera zoom in on him only to reveal Conor McGregor. He'll share a mink coat and trash talking pointers with Arya...it'll be heart warming.
I think it's two fold. It shows her that her "enemies" are also people. So the question is does she still kill them because they are Lannister soldiers or let them live because they are just nice people in person?
The question is whether or not Arya shows humanity, or if she remains on the killing spree. They're (so far) giving her the Lady Stoneheart arc from the books. If that's the case, we'll see the corpses of the kindly Lannister soldiers. If she spares them, she deviates somewhat from the assassin that she's currently showing herself to be. The question is, how much of her high-minded, moral Stark self remains?
Leg for Stoneheart. I've been wondering if or how she could be incorporated into the show at this point. It didn't occur to me that Arya could be playing that role in addition to her own since the books haven't even resolved her time in Braavos yet.
If she winds up killing Ed Sheeran in some gruesome way, I'll allow it no matter how pointless it is.
Edit: Ed Sheeran's character. Obviously, I meant Ed Sheeran's character. Probably.
He has got some good stuff though. Galway girl is a great song.
Steve Earle's is better.I prefer Steve Earle's.
I honestly didn't even know what Ed Sheeran looked like until last night watching the Ringer's after-show when they kept referring to/joking about him. Had to look him up to figure out which scene he was in
Arya needs a face to get into the Red Keep. A Lannister soldier would do nicely. hence this scene.
Also possible the talk about family leads Arya to go North instead of South and then we have the Stark family reunion we've all been waiting for.
Ellaria and Yara Kissing scene, since Yara Greyjoy supports Danerys does that mean Doene is supporting her too?
Dorne threw support to Danaerys after Varys showed up there last season.
Didn't know they would actually do it.
They've been itching for war for years. They hate the Lannisters above all others for what they've done to the Martell family. All Varys had to do is walk in and go, "I've got a Targaryen with dragons coming to wipe out the Lannisters" and Ellaria and the Sand Snakes probably signed up before he finished his sentence.
In last year's finale, there were ships with the Sun Spear on it amongst the Targaryen and Greyjoy ships.
Did anyone else predict the Euron Greyjoy courting Cercei storyline? Pretty obvious to me: evil power couple
I didn't, but it's certainly exciting to think about. What do you think his present is going to be? Will he capture Tyrion? A dragon? What else could actually impress Cersei at this point?
Trying to think of someone who would potentially not be protected in the near future.
My guess would be either Bran or Daario. Both are relatively unprotected, and both would send a major message to either the Starks or Dany.
I don't know how spoiler-y we wanna get, but after reading the books, I have an educated guess as to the "priceless gift" that Euron wants to bring to Cersei.
Haha, I appreciate you withholding this guess
Given GRRM, I'd guess the head of a dragon or Tyrion.
The trailers showed a major sea battle between Euron's fleet and Dany's ships, helmed by Yara and Theon, the only ones among her allies that know how to sail and fight at sea. My guess is Euron captures one of them for revenge for what they did to him and to give Cersei leverage. Based on an additional trailer scene with Theon hunched over on the shore of (presumably) Dragonstone, my guess is Euron captures Yara and Theon continues to feel like a failure because of it.
It's gotta be a Sand Snake. The whole "gift" narrative is what they called the back and forth between Cersei and Ellaria before. I think he captures one of them, perhaps Ellaria herself, for Cersei to slaughter.
With the whole theory online of Euron having that silly dragon horn thing from his travels, he may be bringing her a tamed dragon...which I don't expect to see.
It's not just a theory. In the book he has the horn but it burns the insides of whoever uses it, killing them. However that arc didn't get resolved yet in the books and he never spoke with Cersei, if he ever does.
But to be fair I don't think the books and the show will run parallel since they've already diverged in a number of ways.
So Daenerys is probably the only one that can use it then since she does not burn in the show?
Maybe Jon If he has the same abilities.Edit: I stand corrected. I forgot about the part where Jon got burned.
Jon gets burned fighting off the wight in Mormont's chambers early in the show. So it's definitely only a Danaerys thing.
Burned by ice (cold) is not burned by fire (heat) though.
Hence "A Song of Ice and Fire."
Edit: Now I'm remembering that he was probably burned by a torch or something so... never mind.
I don't follow. The dragon horn is a Valyrian artifact and burns via fire. Jon was burned by a torch. He's not immune to fire.
Being immune to fire is unique to Dany. Plenty of famous Targs have been burned to death.
I totally forgot about the horn. I was thinking he would snatch that other targaryean, the boy that might be a fake. But I suppose that storyline might have been absorbed by the show already.
Oh man, i forgot the other targaryean...
Who did he make a deal with again?
Yeah unfortunately I think the other possible heir won't be a part of it because it would make things too complicated. And besides they already gave greyscale to Jorah instead of to Griff.
Called it
Even though I know better, I have a gut feeling this whole thing is going to wrap up somehow in a "and they all lived happily ever after" after all the evil is wiped away. Why? Because that is the one thing that absolutely nobody is expecting out of
JGRRM, and would ironically cause the most controversy.My "would piss off the most fans" theory says that just as the battle of Kings Landing comes to a head, the White Walker invasion begins in earnest, and causes everyone to ally and align to defeat them, and they all rally around a group of leaders who leads the battle to crush it all.
After all this buildup, and after all the "who dies next", that would be the most
JGRRM ending ever, by not actually being aJGRRM ending.JRRM being Jorge R.R. Martin, of course.
Who knew he was Latino?
Make sure to roll your tongue on that rr
*sigh*
I thought that was a fantastic episode. A great way to start the season, and certainly one of the juiciest premieres of the show. No, there wasn't anything massive or a ton of violence but they made it clear where everything was headed and still gave you some treats. Each scene left a what's next question: Arya and Ed Sheerhan (she's totally killing them all), the Hound (he's obviously a pivotal player going forward), Euron (who/what is his gift), Bran is now on the good side of the wall (that is a bad thing, that wall is coming down and there was a ton of foreshadowing to this), Jorah looks like a burnt hot dog, and obviously Dany.
So Jorah is now where Shireen was cured and the book sam was reading had thing in it talking about how eating dragonglass can cure grey scale. I expect this will lead Sam and Jorah to Dany and Jon at some point.
I'm afraid Euron's gift will be a stark child or Tyrion or something. That's going to suck.
Still think Arya kills Littlefinger.
Give me that Nymeria reveal next week though.
I doubt Arya kills them all. She only needs one face to get into King's Landing unnoticed.
So this means Ed Sheeran will be playing Arya being a Lannister who can sing doesn't it.
-delete-
Replied to wrong comment.
Yeah but how is she only going to kill one? She's shown quite the knack for high efficiency mass killings this season.
Lure one of them off into the woods to have some fun.
I still see her killing them all - lure one into the woods, kill him, take his face, kill the rest. Or maybe she will be friendly with them all.
kills one then uses the face to blend into the group until they get back to Kings landing
I think Euron's gift is a Targaryean.
I'm hoping Arya doesn't kill any of them. I could see the scene unfolding where she leads one off to kill runs into Nymeria and has a change in heart and heads North with Nymeria and a MASSIVE pack of Wolves! The reunion of the remaining Starks!
Euron's gift will be his attempt to bring back Dany. I don't think he wins the sea battle.
I could see Sansa marrying Littlefinger as a way to gain control of the Vale's Army and pushes him out the moon door. Don't think it will happen, but the her getting married to him would make sense in order to gain full control of the Vale.
Littlefinger doesn't have any legal control over the Vale. Robin Arryn is the Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. Obviously, Robin seems to do whatever he says, so in the short run, this would be a way to get control. But if the long term goal was to usurp Littlefinger in the Vale, marrying Robin would probably be the most politically sound measure given the current structure. Although, given that they're first-cousins, that would probably be frowned upon.
Granted, the whole political structure of Westeros is about to be turned on its head, so who knows.
Things that I strongly believe to be true moving forward in GOT:
1) Dany is a conqueror and a liberator much more than she is a ruler, I don't think her end game is being some traditional ruler. I think she flips Westeros upside down and changes things forever (ultimately)
2) I think Dany shows up and wrecks shop until she is forced to unite with Jon (and everyone else) to face the Walkers after Bran inevitably breaks the seal (if he didn't already in this past episode by passing through the gate, I didn't brush up before the season started)
Insignificant notes from this first episode:
What in the hell was Euron wearing? He looked like a hipster trying to dress like an 80's rock star (I realize this is redundant in some cases) His tight leather pants and leather jacket embroidered in stars looked quite out of place.
Agreed on Euron's attire and I think he intends to bring Tyrion back. I foresee a large naval battle coming. Danny is going to take Westeros and one of the either Cersei or Jaime kills the other as a big twist, Cersei because she has no problem betraying people, and Jaime, in a repeat, because she has lost her damn mind. The Starks will be forced to align with Danny as the white walkers bust through the wall and push them south.
After a ton of backlash on social media from his performance, Ed Sheeran has deleted his twitter account.
He had already gone social media silent a few months ago, so this isn't a huge deal.
Man, people will bitch about anything.
I thought the song he was singing was pretty good, and his presence in that scene really didn't take away from its intent.
Frankly, I think it would be awesome to see Arya take his face and kill a few more Lannister. Seen the guy live and he is fantastic, watching him as an assassin would offer some cool dissonance.
But then Sheerhan would have to act for real. I didn't think it was a bad performance and he only had all of like 3 lines aside from the song. I agree if you didn't know who Ed Sheerhan was its not like he would have stood out negatively.
Right? I thought the exact same thing.
Not sure I follow on Shereen as a performer, but to each their own.
I dont know the guy and don't care to know about him but I thought the scene was good. Nice blend. Agree on the bitching. I am jonesing for thrones! Lol
I thought the scene was fine but in a way it kinda ruined the moment. Just took you out of the realism of the show for a second.
frozen ice zombies and dragons... totally cool
Ed Sheeran for 3 minutes... completely ruins the realism
What's next a female doctor Who!
I guess it just felt more like something a sitcom would do rather than a drama like Thrones.
Thrones has had a ton of low-key cameos for a while. The metal band Mastodon played a bunch of the White army as Jon's sailing away from Hardhome. Coldplay's drummer was in the Red Wedding. Granted, Sheeren is likely the most popular of them all, but they've given some really minor roles like that to cameos before.
Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard supposedly filmed a scene for this season as well
Yeah but they have all been done a little more subtle. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. I hate his music so that might be why it bugged me. With that being said, it was only a quick scene and doesn't mean much going forward.
Supposedly Maisie Williams is a huge fan so they wanted to surprise her.
Maybe Thor's cameo will be as a soldier throwing a sword or knife extremely hard. As a Nats fan, it's my duty to not like him. As a fan of baseball and groovy hair, I respect the shit out of him.
I lived through the 70's once already, please don't make me relive those cursed years.
Just saw this theory on twitter, can't embed.
The opening credit scene for season 7 showed the sea to the right of the wall frozen over and that would explain the Hounds vision that the white walkers are walking around or past the wall.
But....I wanna see the wall fall...
The wall will fall.
It would be a little anticlimactic if the Army of the Dead just kind of went around.
But just think of all the ways the news pundits would spin that into a political statement and then we would get all the entertainment of right wing conspiracy theories against game of thrones zealots!
I didn't think it would be that hard to spot the parallel. Big wall designed to keeps some people out but the wall isn't built into the ocean so they can just go around. Certain news network accuses HBO of mocking a certain authority figure's border security plan.
Was just coming to mention this. Rewatched the opening credits and it's pretty clear.
I've seen some people discussing this possibility and saying if the Walkers could just freeze the sea why haven't they walked around a long time ago. This isn't the first winter since the Long Night certainly. Perhaps the Walkers aren't the purely evil beings they are depicted as. Maybe they never had a desire to cross south of the Wall until now, for whatever reason.
I also love that it makes it clear that The Hound still has a special role to play, as the Lord of Light made that vision clear to him.
I want to see this pack of wolves that Arya's dire wolf, Nymeria, is supposedly leading. Me thinks we might see her tonight.
This is the GRRM way - there is no such thing as pure evil, and no such thing as pure goodness. All characters have both endearing qualities and personality flaws (some more than others). I don't expect the White Walkers to be any different. We already saw in Episode 1(?) (where the Night's Watch 'sacrifices' an infant to the walkers) that the white walkers are willing to barter/work with the humans.
That wasn't the Nights Watch
Who was it? Wildlings?
Craster, an ally of the nights watch but he was a free folk.
Can somebody remind me of when/why the hound killed the dude with the eyepatch who was then brought back to life? And who is the guy with the eyepatch?
Beric Dondarrion is the guy with the eyepatch. Ned Stark sent him out in season 1 to patrol, and it ended up developing into the Brotherhood Without Banners.
He and the Hound knew each other, and they dueled when the Brotherhood caught him and Arya. His death introduced us to the resurrection powers of the Red Priests/Priestesses
little more background... Lord Dondarrion was sent out with Thoros of Myr and 100 men to bring Gregor Clegane to face the King's Justice for raiding and pillaging the Riverlands. The Mountain was raiding the Riverlands under Tywin Lannister's orders, in response to Tyrion Lannister being captured by Caitlin Stark and taken to the Eryie. Ultimately this was the beginning of the War of the 5 Kings.
Dondarrion, Thoros and their men were ambushed by the Mountain and decimated, suffering over 50% losses, including Dondarrion who was struck down by the Mountain himself. The remainder of the force scattered into the Riverlands and later Thoros, a resurrected Dondarrion (who renounced his lordship) and remnants of their forces formed the Brotherhood Without Banners to protect the common folk of the Riverlands from the various raiding armies that took turns raiding, burning and pillaging the area.
Well Fuck. That invasion plan didn't work out so well. Those sand snakes fought like shit in a pitched battle.
The Sand Snakes were always more like assassins than warriors. Extremely dangerous assassins, but their strength was not pitched battle against large numbers of opponents. Especially in tight quarters like on a ship, they are only going to be so effective. Note that they either went down to Euron who is an elite level warrior or being swarmed by multiple enemies in tight quarters.
I wasn't unimpressed with their skill in battle, they were greatly outnumbered and Euron turned out to be quite the battle master. The two on one fight with him and the two daughters was one of my favorite in the series, albeit having a bad result. I can't imagine anyone is rooting for Euron (especially anyone who is familiar with his character in the books).
honestly, who was rooting for anyone in that fight? Two of the most shallow characters invented for the show who spew terrible dialogue and murder children vs the definition of psychotic madman.... I'm just sad all 3 of the snakes weren't taken out fighting.
I was hoping Theon would rise to the occasion, but...
One would say he needs to grow a pair?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
What exactly was he going to do? His options were pretty limited.
A) Charge Euron, who would either...
1) cut Yara's throat and then split Theon's skull?
2) toss Yara aside and then split Theon's skull?
B) Run away, leaving his sister alive and being able to potentially warn Dany & Co of Euron's ambush.
That was the only way that episode could end. Tied up the Dorne plotline and now we done have to deal with that annoyance anymore and now it forces Danys hand into needing to attack Kings Landing head on. This season was always on a collision course with Cercei vs The World, and now that's the only course left. Pffft as if a blockade would happen in this show.
What are they going to do with the two Dorne and the ironborn girl alive?
Ransom..
Cersei.. 'Yo Dorne.. Ellaria your Queen is our captive. Go stomp the Tyrells or we behead her" Seeing how Dorne may not take too kindly to that approach, Cersei may just get revenge by donating Ellaria and her daughter to Qyburn's experiments.
Who knows what Euron will do with Yara. Probably just kill her like he intended to do after the Kingsmoot.
Ellaria is not the Dornish queen. She's a Sand; a bastard. While she was the mistress of Prince Oberyn, she doesn't hold any political power in Dorne.
In the show, Ellaria killed Cercei's daughter so Ellaria? She ded.
I don't know that she ever named herself queen, but she was/is the ruler of post-Martell Dorne. Remember when she murdered Doran Martell and his guards just sat there and watched because they were tired of the diplomacy and scheming he favored and wanted the direct action against the Lannisters that she promoted? She wasn't doing it to install someone else as leader.
I sit corrected; I completely forgot about that part of the show.
But the conclusion is the same.. She ded.
Kill the daughter in front of her, then kill Ellaria in some public fashion. The question is who is leading Dorne now, because she took power and now Dorne is rudderless.
I think Yara survives because she takes over the Iron Islands in the end.
Wonder if Dany will promote Tyrion since his plan is working out sooo well. Looks like Lady Olenna is right again
I'm just excited we got to see a Direwolf again
And it said
"Go with you? You hit me with a big rock, remember? How about we just don't eat you."
You have a picture of my friend Phil as your profile icon
Oh snap. You know Phil too? Craziest EE I ever met.
Don't suppose any of you Phil acquaintances used to play football with him on the drillfield?
That was an awesome way to spend Freshman year.
We may very well have faced each other on the hallowed gridiron of the drillfield my friend.
That was a damn good time. One of the things I miss most about undergrad.
Aye, 'twas. The next morning was a little rough though. I was one of the older ones out there and it was around that time I tore a tendon in my ankle. Ah, to be young(er) and dumb again.
Nah I learned early in college that me and pad-free tackle football was a bad bad idea.
Also, Phil just about gave me a concussion when we both went in for a sack in IM flag football. I wasn't about to play with him when he was trying to hit me.
Yeah, I outweighed him by a good 80 lbs and he threw some good licks on me. I got some good ones in too.
Were you on Gametime?
nope. He was in a bible study with one of my friends and our student ministry put together a team. We weren't very good and couldn't even consistently field a team because of numbers. Phil only played with us one season I think.
Yea I saw you were class of 07. I played intramural a with Phil 2011 and 2012. Funny he's been there so long.
At least he left with a PhD. I know some guys who were at tech that long and barely escaped with a bachelor's.
**Insert Tommy Boy GIF Here**
One of my roommates took 10 years, including some VT directed time off, to get his undergraduate. I have to admit I'm a little jealous.
I did, actually. Usually right out in front of Burruss. Played on the flag football team as well. Still have the gametime jersey somewhere
I just want to point out that there will be a new episode of Game of Thrones every Sunday until August 27.
The following Sunday, the Hokies play a football game.
Things are looking up.
WinterFall is comingFinally the whole non game of thrones feel good crap didn't end up leaving us with a yay throb grew a pair and instead evil wins and honestly that came out of no where I thought euron was going to get gendry as the last Baratheon he would've been a good gift but hey why not a whole mother fleet and their leader, this new emo euron ain't messing about
Sam has won me over after I used to cringe at his appearances and this episode was neat to see him try and cure Jorah dunno if it'll work will be interesting to see
Interesting that Jon slammed and choked little finger the same way Ned did over catlynne except this time it was over Sansa definitely don't think that was for nothing there
Interesting to see if Jon finds out about the dornish and iron born fleet getting sacked before the vampire queen with her fire breathers tries to force him to bend the knee
I swear if Jon gets to dragon stone before bran made it from the wall to winterfell I will uncover the magical hidden tractor beam they're using to move characters around westeros cause ain't no way the wall is that far from winterfell unless bran is still being dragged by the wee lass
1) Euron went shopping at Hot Topic during the summer and is proudly showing his new wardrobe during the new school year
2) Whatever happened to the Dragon glass Sam found used it to kill the wight. If he had kept it, he clearly could use that on Jorah
Jon lost the dragon glass at hardhome I thought
JSnow losing his temper with Little finger the same way Ned did doesn't bode well for him. Things may be "going south" for ol' Jonny (literally and figuratively). Also shows he still has some maturing to do as a leader if little finger can goose him that easily.
EDIT: I'm also not sure why Sansa doesn't just murder Little Finger and feed his body to the dogs. They don't need him anymore and his claim on the Eyre is tenuous at best. My thinking is that he'd hardly be missed and it would be super easy to co-opt the Eyre in his absence. While he's still alive, he's a major risk.
My speculation is that Jon Eryn is a firecracker and the only one who can soothe him is littlefinger. If the starks kill littlefinger after he just led the armies to the north's aid, the knights will attack.
I interpret the episodes as taking place over months, not days/weeks. The audience doesn't need to be updated on every uneventful pit stop that Jon Snow takes between Winterfell and Dragon Stone.
Agreed, this is one of the more obnoxious criticisms of the show.
Yeah the time scale of the show is clearly months weeks or months between each episode (Ravens can only fly so fast).
Buuut still not sure how Euron had the time to build all those ships, unless he came across some power tools during his travels
This is the one "time" issue I just can't seem to get over. I've just skimmed over/ignored the rest, but the dude just built an IRON armada in a few months at most. Euron must have went to VT because he is apparently a hell of an engineer...
If I recall right, Yara and Theon didn't get away with the entire Iron Fleet. They only left with the few supporters they had, maybe a third at best.
I recall the wording was something like 100 best or fastest ships, thats it.
Gotcha, I just know for sure in the books they leave with a minority of the fleet because they just want to get out of dodge.
Yara and Theon fled the Iron Islands with their loyalists and sailed all the way around Westeros, across the Narrow Sea and then along the southern coast of Essos to meet Dany in Slavers bay. A quick trip that is not..
Nymeria will be back...
I hope. I really wanted that reunion. I'm so disappointed.
My theory is that Arya might actually (sort of) be a 'faceless man', and Nymeria recognized that she's no longer (completely) Arya Stark, thus letting her live, but not embracing her as family.Edit: I'm wrong
Wasn't there a point in the series earlier where Arya sees a wolf and is ready to kill it, then realizes its not Nymeria? Or am i confusing it with something else?
My theory is that Nymeria is just a wild direwolf now and her home isn't with Arya anymore. Arya recognized that as Nymeria walked away, with the words "That's not you" a reference to when she told her father she would never be a lady in waiting. Arya recognized that Nymeria would never be her pet.
You're spot on. Showrunners confirmed this in the "Inside the Episode" for the episode. You either watched that or you're really good at interpreting the show.
I didn't get the direct connection to the earlier episode until the post-show but I did see it as Arya recognizing that Nymeria had grown up and changed as much as she herself had, and wasn't a pet anymore.
Nymeria is no more tame than arya is. So when arya is asking her to come with her its to going back to when she is a tamed pet. A scene i think is going to be replicated later between sansa and arya.
They are who they are now. No going back.
But i do think Nymeria will come to save Arya later
Dany is definitely turning into the "bad guy"
Nope.
Well...I think she is. And that, kids, is how you debate like gentlemen.
Hey the Targ's have the whole "|Foreign Invader" thing down to a T! And Dany is Westerosi in only the loosest sense having been born on Dragonstone and spirited away soon after.
Its in a sense both liberating to have someone who literally couldnt give a shit about the entire plot of the previous 6 seasons that wasnt about her except how it relates to her having an easier time taking over, who will pledge to her, and which of those with a hand in her family's ruin remain alive. And vaguely freeing people from shitty lives by empowerment or dragon fire as needed. But it also means that the Westerosi characters we have become emotionally invested in have a much harder time reaching what we might find a satisfying conclusion through their own acts or agency now that there is this young woman with a well trained army, a barbarian horde, and 3 WMD's with 0 interest in the status quo.
I just can't see GRRM having a singular character go the distance and never once have much dark to her (minus her family history). There's a video on youtube that goes way in depth with it (like 15-20mins)...spells it out extremely well and has me convinced that in the end she will indeed be the big baddie of it all. The way she was acting with her council last night and the "jon snow best be coming here and bendin a knee" deal literally the moment after she learned of his existence, my lightbulb started going off. It'd be right up his Martin's alley to pull some shit like that too.
See this is where I'm at I feel in the end she could twist and be a mad targaryen so in the end like a lot of characters isn't the graceful heroin people thinks she is especially with the whole come bend the knee to Jon which I think is a bit excessive, especially noting that her fleet just got sunk and dorne may no longer be under her she's got only the tyrells to back her she's not exactly unbeatable
The Dany storyline has gone in waves, at least for me. First season you have her Dothraki storyline where she's basically a Viserys who knows how to shut up and push her agenda silently. Then you have seasons 2-4 where she becomes a good queen, frees the slaves, takes over cities, and is listening mainly to Jorah. That was her peak which she hasn't been able to reach since.
The turning point was when she had that guy's head chopped off in season 4 or 5 for literally no reason, while the whole crowd is begging her not too. She follows that up by feeding an innocent guy to the dragons just to frighten the other prisoners. I blame this change mostly on Daario who is bloodthirsty yet a lot of time tries to claim the moral high ground (also definitely not a high IQ guy). Really glad they got rid of that guy, although who wouldn't love to see Bronn kick the crap out of him in a battle of the two main rogue "sellsword" characters.
*GASPS* I loved Daario in the straightest, manliest way possible. I was so sad when she cut him loose.
Hahah he is a likable character, but everything that he had going for him I liked better in Bronn (except for maybe the smoothness he used to win over Dany).
Separately him and Daenarys aren't bad characters, but they are undeniable bad for each other. Daario pushes her to be more ruthless when it pretty much comes naturally for her anyways. And she pushes him to be a whipped little b**ch who is all the more eager to chop off heads in order to "serve" her.
This has been my beef with the Dany storyline - she hasn't grown or evolved since season 4/5. Every other major character has. The one exception I can think of is arguably Jon Snow, but he's come back from the dead, had to make tough decisions (exile the woman who brought him back to life, kill an 8 year old boy who used to be his friend, etc).
That being said, it's possible that Dany takes a turn for the worst this year, and becomes like the mad king.
Jorah Mormont's actor has spoken out about the "Evil Dany" rumors.
Sure anything is possible, but people make 20 minute conspiracy videos about everything on youtube. GRRM is a talented enough story teller to make anything work and make sense, but it would be quite a Shyamalan-esque twist (which I think GRRM is way above needing anything like that) to suddenly make her character, who so far has acted as the ultimate conqueror, and most importantly, liberator, in the series to make her a straight up villain. Her role is to flip Westeros on its head and things never be the same again, which I think will happen, whether she is still standing at the end or not.
The good news is that I don't think it'll take long for us to find out. Have a feeling it all comes to a head this week when Jon Snow visits.
Even if her first meeting with Jon doesn't go well, It's all but certain that she and the dragons have an important role to play against the Walkers, even if it means a last second change of heart to head north and stop conquering Westeros.
Nah, a Shymaladingdong-esque twist would be at the end of the series this was all a board game that a couple kids in Chicago were playing and one of them looks out the window and sees the sun coming out after a big snow.
Maybe "definitely" was a strong word to use in the original statement, but I think she's inching closer to the edge for sure.
ooh, we find out that, with the closing scene, its actually the game the kids are playing in the basement to kick off Stranger Things season 3!
I'm not totally sure how this this could be conveyed in the TV show, but in the books all of the stories are told from the point of view of certain characters. With Dany almost all of her story is told from her point of view, so it could be that she is actually a mad queen but we haven't seen that because from her standpoint everything is justified or presented in a way that makes it seem justified.
There is an interesting example of this with Sansa in the books, she on several occasions remembers The hound kissing her at the Battle of the Blackwater, but in her own chapter on the event that kiss never happened. GRRM has pointed to this as an example of Sansa being an unreliable narrator.
I really liked Theon having his Reek-induced panic and jump overboard. That's just good character consistency. Anyone that expected him to throw down vs his crazy uncle hasn't been paying attention.
That said, I do still think we are going to get a moment of redemption for Theon. It may not be something grandiose, and frankly I hope it isn't cheesy. Just something to show that he ultimately was able to "nut up"...excuse the pun
Yep, they did an excellent job showing how you don't just recover from something like that being done to you. The triggers and such causing him to panic, perfectly done. And I'm sure many of you were like me, you really wanted Theon to step up there and try to save his sister, but you knew he wasn't going to be able to. It made the scene that much better, bravo.
I absolutely lost it at that scene. They set it up so perfectly as the stereotypical man-finds-his-courage-and-helps-his-partner-defeat-the-enemy-despite-long-odds scene and then...
Looks like we've found a new abandon thread gif.
Y'all are welcome.
I'll always be a sucker for a good pun.
I do think its a bit funny that people are pissed at Theon for abandoning his sister when the odds looked bleak...but remember how Theon came to be Reek...his sister left him for Ramsey when the odds looked bleak.
Exactly, she abandoned him before he got completely ruined.
EUR-ON! EUR-ON! EUR-ON!
I think this is the season where Frodo finally professes his undying love for Edmund Pevensie and they run away to Prydain having absconded with both the sword of Shannara and the deathly hallows...
Biggest theory coming from last nights show is how arya may go south after realizing she's like nymeria wild and free but we shall see I don't buy that one as much BUTTTTT I also saw it funny how even with Ramsay holding Sansa hostage arya didn't bat an eye about going to help her and only when Jon takes winterfell back is only wanting to go home guess she really didn't like Sansa or she was completely pblivious to the battle of the bastards outcome
I think I speak for everyone when I say I really just want to see Arya kill *everybody*.
In the books Arya and Jon are the closest of the stark children. Due to both of them feeling like outsiders. Also, note Jon was the one to give Arya needle. The one thing that reminds her of who she is and has kept her alive.
I don't know if I want Arya to kill "everybody", but a few more from her list would make me happy. I don't see her killing Cersei because of the prophecy of Cersei dying at the hands of her little brother.
Arya just has to kill Jaime and take his face. Then she'll fulfill the prophecy.
Or just steal Jamie's golden hand and use that to kill her
I have trouble grasping that that fulfills the prophecy because it technically won't be Jamie. I think he legit kills Cersei eventually.
I agree I think Jamie will ultimately be the one who kills Cersei. To me it's too much of a stretch for Arya to be the one to do it with his face. Especially since we last saw her riding North.
I do think Arya will be the one who kills Littlefinger! Or at least helps Sansa do it. I mean she has to get her hands on his dagger somehow and plus its Valyrian steel!
Also, I appreciate everyone's theories! Fun to read everyone's different theories.
I agree that it will probably be Jaime in the end. I just thought it would be a cool twist on the prophecy.
Unless Nymeria changed Ayra's mind, Arya is probably headed north now, so my scenario is very unlikely.
Could be coincidence, but I'm choosing to look at the fact that Jaime is positioned at the Fingers as Cersei stands on the Neck as 100% foreshadowing.
I'm constantly trying to catch stuff like that but damn that's a deep spot leg for catching that
That's what I'm thinking too. Snow did the same thing to LF that Ned did before LF sold him out to the Lannisters. And basically for the same reasons.
I have just one very important question. Where is Ghost? I miss that pup.
Somewhere in the CGI department's budget, waiting for an important moment to show up.
read something where one of the directors or production managers was saying that the original concept for the Battle of the Bastards had Ghost fighting alongside Jon the entire time. But the CGI budget was getting busted by having both Ghost and Wun-Wun in so many scenes. Ghost ended up getting cut in favor of the giant.
Better there than somewhere on screen dying for bullshit reasons imo
Wait there is only 7 episodes this season! So we only have FIVE left!! WTF.
Think of it this way.. there was only supposed to be 7 seasons. Ended up being too much material for a single 10 episode season, so they decided to film 14 episodes instead. (and split them up into two seasons...)
I thought there were only 6 next season?...annnnd, rumor has it, they'll all be feature length.
The finale this season is also 2 hours long i believe
ok take you're leg.. 6 episodes in Season 8
I'll stick by my point though.. even with fewer episodes this season we're getting more GoT than originally conceived so it's hard for me to complain about a short season. Plus, from this article it sounds like S7E7 through S8E6 are all going to be longer than normal, in the 80+ minute range.
http://deadline.com/2017/07/season-8-game-of-thrones-episodes-could-be-f...
I don't know why y'all are excited about more Thrones than originally planned and longer finales. That's just more time for them to rip out hearts out.
That's the thing it hurts so good I can't turn away
And might not air for two years..
Well Euron must be one hell of a ship captain to get his fleet all the way around Westeros to capture Yara and the snakes, then all the way back around in time for the unsullied's attack on Casterly Rock, all while stopping in Kings Landing twice. Hmm
The promise of having a thumb in Cersei's Bum will make a man do extraordinary things.
He was in Kings landing prior to battle where he captured Yara etc, that battle took place in narrow sea between Dragonstone and Dorne so not far from Kings Landing.
I know it's difficult not to, but a lot of people get up in arms about this and other continuity breaks in the show. I see it on r/gameofthrones a lot but it's important to remember that not everything is on the same timeline in the show. Certain things tend to happen quicker than others.
And the showrunners made it clear that this season and next are going to be different in terms of pace. Rather than a few hours or days having passed between episodes as in most of the previous seasons, the time elapsed in seasons 7 and 8 between episodes may be months. Like last episode, Jon announced he was heading to White Harbor to sail to Dragonstone. That's probably a two-month trip, at least, part by land and the rest by sea.
I'm sick of people complaining about the show's pace these last two seasons. Cersei told the iron banker that she would repay her debts in a fortnight, so it was clear that this single episode was at least 2 weeks of 'real time'.
I really underestimated Cercei and Jamie, which is silly considering how clever Tyrion is. Daenerys' is probably going to snap into the reality that she should have just marched on King's Landing
So lets see... The Lannisters are pretty much forcing Jon and Dany to work together, huh? I'm sure that won't come back to kill them.
And yes, I'm sure everyone caught the "I've brought fire and ice together" by Melisandre. Way to reference the books by name, GRRM!
That was a really good episode in my opinion. It wasn't big like Battle of the Bastards, but it was also full of the king of slow burn development that makes this show great.
Lady Olenna made sure to die as the most savage person in Westeros. Her finally revealing to Jamie that she killed Joffrey was satisfying, despite it really not making much difference. That entire dialogue was really well done too. I think Jamie has always knew what Olenna was telling him with regards to Cersei being bat shit crazy - but I think now he is starting to resent her a little more and maybe beginning to turn against her. Euron will play a big part in this too.
I didn't really get all the Dany hate in the last episode but her exchange with Jon helped me understand a little bit more. She seems suddenly a bit more braggadocious than she was when she was on the other side of the narrow sea. They did a really good job showing the internal conflict with Tyrion who respects Jon Snow but also is loyal to Dany. Let's also acknowledge the dramatic symbolism when Jon said "I'm not a Stark" then a dragon nearly takes his head off. Boi if only you knew.
Speaking of which, Bran... that scene was a little underwhelming. I know he's not going to tell everything as soon as he gets back but what in the world. He looked high and was being weird as hell?
Melisandre stays creepy yet beautiful.
Looking forward to next week, did anyone notice Littlefinger's dagger? Me thinks Arya's arrival at Winterfell is imminent.
The exchange between Jaime and Olenna was great.
I interpreted his reaction to her confession of killing Joffrey not as much as shock at the news, but to your point just another confirmation point that all of his children's deaths were a direct response to Cersei's actions in one way or another.
There's also the part where Cercei tried Tyrion for murder and sentenced him to death for a crime that Jamie now knows for a fact that he did not do. Considering the moves that are happening right now, its inevitable that part will come back up again during the eventual Dany vs Cercei battle.
And that. There was a little bit of internal conflict for Jaime of releasing Tyrion after the trial as well, and now he knows for certain he had nothing to do with it. The books do a bit more fleshing out on the point that Jaime was pretty much the only person who really loved Tyrion and treated him like an equal growing up (until Tywin pretty much forced him to trick him about Tyrion's wife), the show certainly touched on that as well.
All these little points of pain adding up, to what I expect will be a very natural end result of The Kingslayer also becoming the Queenslayer.
With the "Dany hate" I think the show creators went above and beyond and completely laid it on the nose to explain why Dany wouldn't just be like "Oh okay Jon lets go fight the White Walkers together!" Tyrion explained it out in whole (which was a service to fans too stupid to realize this themselves) why she would be skeptical to believe him, and why she wouldn't just suddenly change course on what she has been building towards her entire life.
There are too many Jon fanboys that probably were like, "what a dumb B****!" and other stupid things during that scene who were too stupid to understand that characters within the show other than Jon and company didn't see the White Walkers and have other motivations. The viewer always has the best understanding of the big picture as opposed to characters within the show. As a result, it was obvious their first meeting wasn't going to go swimmingly. They were meeting together with very different ideas, plans, and intentions for said meeting, of course there would be conflict. I'm actually happy they at least came to something of a resolution at the end.
I didn't expect her to start fighting the White Walkers right away because like Tyrion said, she's not going to suddenly change course. It's her declaring that because he won't bend the knee he's in open rebellion against her. If that was true he'd never have met with her to begin with.
Someone explain to me why Jon is keeping his whole being resurrected thing a secret? I understand it would be tough to explain to Dany, but when you're already talking about ice zombies that no one believes in anyway, why keep that under wraps?
If you're trying to convince someone that zombies exist, its probably not the best idea to reveal you yourself have also been brought back from the dead. At best they'll think you're crazy.
I get that, but at least he has the scars to prove that he's been killed. Maybe if he could prove one crazy thing, the other wouldn't be so hard to believe? I know I'm oversimplifying it, I just think it would help garner some support
But that's a double edged sword. If he manages to convince them he arose from the dead, he'll now have to convince them that he's the exception and that all the others are evil. Most likely they'll either suspect he's one of the white walkers, or will devalue the threat the white walkers present. Either way, his whole reason to be there becomes that much harder to manage with the revelation he's been killed once before.
Plus just general distrust of people for magic, the Lord of Light, and the Red Priestess in particular.
But in that same breath, dragons, by some in the show, are considered magic.
But....what IF the night king CAN control him because he rose from the dead? Remember, Jon Snow never encountered the night king since his resurrection........
Seems unlikely, only because he was brought back ostensibly by the Lord of Light.
The show has only depicted the Walkers having control specifically over those they themselves raise, with the signature blue eyes. Jons return was a different type of magic
In theory, I agree with you. We've only seen 2 people resurrected: Jon and The Lightning lord. Neither (in their current form) have encountered the night king. Unlikely, but would be an interesting GRRM twist
Don't forget about FrankenMountain, but yeah he hasn't encountered the Night King either
The Mountain is interesting because its never made quite clear if he actually died or if Qyburn was able to keep him alive through his experiments.
I just don't see it. They are just two very different types of resurrection. The wights (be they people, horses, giants, etc) seem to come back with absolutely nothing remaining of who or what they once were. They are empty rotting shells controlled by another force.
Jon and Beric (or Lady Stoneheart in the books) clearly are still themselves, with all the associated memories and personalities they had before their death (in Stoneheart's case, she has just become consumed by revenge)
I'm with you.
a wight is a corpse animated by magic
Jon/Beric are living people who were resurrected by magic. They're not corpses. Now if Beric is killed again and the Night King does his hand-waving thing before Thoros can re-re-re-re-re-re-resurrect him then there we would get wight-Beric
That's not entirely clear. Technically, both Jon and Beric died (several times, in Beric's case) so they are, in fact, magically reanimated corpses. There are even some theories that Beric isn't really alive and his heart isn't beating. The things he says indicate he's still partly human, but each time he is resurrected, he is less and less of himself, less and less human.
FWIW, I agree with the overall point that those reanimated by the Lord of Light are not beholden to the Night King's magic (which is that of the Old Gods). Gotta have that whole ice vs. fire thing throughout the entire story!
So Beric has horcruxes somewhere is what you're saying?
Yeah. You have to travel 12 parsecs away to throw the horcrux into the fires of Mordor to kill him
I'm sticking with them being living people not animated corpses. Jon has scars because his body healed and is living. Same goes for Beric. If they were corpses they'd have open wounds, and would still be decaying. Beric loses a bit of himself each time because dying has consequences. Who knows how the afterlife works in GoT, but an extreme example from the books is Catelyn Stark. She is dead for so long (months?) that by the time she's resurrected she has lost almost all of her personality and memories except a strong motivation to kill Freys and Lannisters.
Well if I remember correctly Dany asks Tyrion about Jon taking a dagger to the heart... Perhaps their "bonding" let's work together scene will involve them trading stories about how they died for their people. Dany burned herself alive and was "reborn" and Jon was stabbed to death and then "reborn". They can bond over that, followed by a sex scene, and ending with Bran telling them both that Jon is here nephew.
The Varys story line is going to be real intriguing... Looks like there is a mole in Dani's camp - I'm not sure how else the Lannister army could've prepared so well for Dani's attack. My theory is that Varys is offended by Dani's growing arrogance. If he believes that Cersei can provide peace to the relm, then I think he supports her.
The exchange between him and Melisandre was also interesting. She clearly knows something about him that we do not.
I think Varys being the mole is too obvious of a choice.
Agreed, but I get the feeling he may be the one to get punished for it regardless
So I think I'm in the small camp in thinking that there doesn't necessarily need to be a mole.
Euron was heading to Dragonstone regardless. He finds the Yara/Sandsnake fleet and takes it. Both of those parties knew the whole battle plan. Common foot soldiers probably knew where the unsullied were going. Any or all of these parties could've given up the plans about the attack on the Rock.
I think the only leap of faith required is the initial attack by Euron. The rest of the info could be gathered from the prisoners.
Additionally, they don't need a mole to make those plans. It's not crazy to assume Jaime/Cersei have the tactical knowledge to have set up the situation explained in the last episode. They wouldn't be crazy to think Casterly Rock would be attacked, and to send Euron there to trap the unsullied army on land without their fleet is a brilliant tactical maneuver, especially given that they had minimal defense at Casterly Rock and had already moved their army.
The possibility of a mole is 100% there, and I'm not going to take sides, but I think it's pretty reasonable that there isn't one as well.
thoughts on Dany's remaining forces..
Unsullied Legion - at Casterly Rock
Dothraki Horde - at Dragonstone
Dragons - at Dragonstone
Tyrell army - defeated by the Lannister army at Highgarden
Tyrell navy - defeated by the IronBorn navy at Casterly Rock
IronBorn Rebel Navy - defeated by the IronBorn navy in the Narrow Sea, leaders captured
Dornish Navy = ??? Ellaria and the Sand Snakes seemed to be traveling with Yara's fleet, not their own. Pretty sure the Dornish ships are still at Dragonstone, otherwise there wouldn't be a way to transport the Dothraki to Westeros proper. After all it was only the Dornish leadership that was traveling back to Dorne, to raise their army, link up with The army of the Reach and march on Kings Landing.
Dornish Army = ?? Gotta figure at best they'll be held at bay by the Army of the Reach led by Randal Tarly. At worst they are completely out of the picture and the Tarly army will be teamed up with the Lannisters vs any moves the Unsullied or Dothraki make.
I don't even think the initial attack by Euron on Yara & Theon was all that far fetched either.
He had been hunting them ever since they ditched him after the Kingsmoot. Plus everyone had to figure that Team Stormborn would re-take Dragonstone first thing, giving a nice location fix for her entire navy. All Euron had to then was have a few scouts out to monitor ship movements around Dragonstone.
Only thing that is a head scratcher is why let the Unsullied land and attack the Lannister castle before taking out their fleet? My only guess is that Euron's fleet couldn't catch up fast enough even with their fast raiders, because the Unsullied had a pretty good head start by the time Euron was sent after them.
Jon trying to convince people the army of the dead is real
In an episode with some great interaction between characters, this one got buried a little bit.
Some of the really good scenes (this interaction included) made me kind of lament the fact that we havn't had more opportunity to see some of these character pairings interact more throughout the course of the show.
How about everyone's favorite little bundle of joy, Bran? Yikes, captain emo.
And the seamstresses for these groups must be workhorses. Everybody out of nowhere "WE NOW WEAR BLACK. ALL BLACK. NOW."
I initially thought that about Bran, too, but then I realized that he's still effectively downloading all the knowledge of the world while simultaneously transforming into a psychic tree. Gotta figure there's barely room for personality any more.
Yeah, but he could be a little less creepy about the whole thing. Describing the night of her wedding to Ramsay...why????
seemingly to validate to Sansa that he *sees* everything
totally creepy tho, like, 'hey remember one of the worst days of your life, yeah i saw all that go down..., nice dress btw'
as someone who hasn't ever liked bran this scene was one of the cringiest yet
I mean, even the actor who plays Bran knows how terrible he is.
*this was after the The Door episode.
I had a profound thought last night. So since Dany is actually Jon's aunt, when the two of them get married as an alliance, the Targaryen tradition of inter-family marriage can continue... Plot twist!
Until jons little weird as hell nephew tells him he's engaged in a West Virginia styled marriage and proceeeds to make it awkward as crap
Honestly was surprised by how nobody believes in the army of the dead stuff i never foresaw an issue where Jon had to convince people it's a real thing. I know it's been ages since a winter in westeros but shouldn't people know winter brings the night king or does he not come out every winter?
Only during the long winter which has been before Westeros was taken over by dragons.
It's been thousands of years since anyone south of the Wall has actually seen a White Walker.
It's why the Nights Watch basically only gets criminals and bastards to serve. No one really believes they serve a purpose anymore.
In Westeros seasons last a few years. normally winter is just chilly in the south and snowy in the north. The current winter is different.
The white walkers are on the move, raising an army of the dead. It's unclear why they're back, but they hadn't been seen for thousands of years, not since the "long winter" of legend.
'Modern' Westerosi are aware of the Wall but view it as a protection against the Wildlings, not the White Walkers, which have become the thing of legend and stories, not something that is regularly dealt with.
Some thoughts:
1) just how big is the Lannister army? For being out of money they seem to have no problem fielding 1000 man armies all over the damn place. They still technically run the Riverlands, Harrenhall and others, as well.
2) If Dorne, the Martells and Greyjoys hadn't been taken care of then Dany would have picked them apart. Now through great strategic maneuvers Cersei and Jamie are forcing Dany to join with Jon Snow sooner rather than later. Now the choice is does she go North first or Jon go south first.
3) Who is leading the Freys? After Arya decimated them they have no real leader. Seems someone would have noticed by now.
4) Casterly Rock has never been taken except for Tyrions whore portal, which presumably Jamie and Cersei know nothing about. So not sure why GrayWorm MUST march back across land. Just hold it.
5) Dany the villian. Not buying the "bend the knee" means she's power mad. If you're a ruler you have to always display power especially when faced with other power. I would have demanded the same if only to know where Jon stands.
6) Euron the time traveler. People have noted the timeline but forget that the Unsullied sailed for the Rock last eposode and then Euron caught Ellaria and Yara. His fleet could have kept sailing after dropping him off to parade for Cersei, and he simply travelled over land to meet them on other side. But they weren't far behind GrayWorm so it seems likely they would show up in time to burn their ships. (that was a great scale comparison of Euron's ship amongst the others)
7) Stark reunion. Bran is back, Arya shouldn't be far behind. Sansa still in power. (Jon and Tyrion giving recognition of the badass she is becoming.)
In response to point #4:
No one has ever taken Casterly Rock when it was being properly defended. Jamie and Cersei only left a skeleton crew to keep the Unsullied occupied on land long enough for Euron to sweep in behind them and destroy their ships. Tyrion's whore portal just allowed the taking of the Rock to happen more quickly.
More importantly, the Lannisters emptied out all of the supplies on their way out to march towards Highgarden, so the Unsullied are now in an empty castle with most, if not all, of the supplies they brought with them now at the bottom of the sea. It would be nearly impossible for them to hold it with no food or other supplies. That doesn't matter anyway, because no one is going to try to take it from them because it is tactically useless. They have no supplies and no transportation. If they want to eat, they are going to have to start marching.
Did they say they took all supplies? What about the people that actually live there? Or those farms and towns in the hinterland that depend on the Rock for trade?
Agree that if that were all true then they would be forced to March but this goes back to my point 1. Just how big is the Lannister Army? They are seemingly all down at Highgarden. So who would stop the Unsullied marching now anyway?
As far as it not being taken when well defended that's like a team complaining they lost a game on a bogus penalty. It sucks but it's still a loss. It may not have been well defended but its now been sacked.
Jamie outright tells Oleanna Tyrell that they took everything on their way out and now the Unsullied are going to have a very long march ahead of them with no supplies. That was the plan. The Unsullied are effectively out of the picture for a while. The Lannisters do not need to try to stop them from marching, they have a long way to go on foot with no food in a foreign land that they know nothing about.
Yes, technically, Casterly Rock has now been taken for the first time. But at this point, who cares? There is no longer any gold in the mines and no food in the larders. It is just an empty shell. I doubt that the Lannisters care about the towns and farms in the Hinterland right now. They are trying to win a war and Casterly Rock is useless to them. Anyone important to them was probably moved to King's Landing or Horn Hill.
Unsullied get marched North to equip with dragonglass and fight the walkers.
I missed him saying they took everything but i believe it. However I do remember Tywin saying how important the lords of Casterly Rock are to winning the war. So i don't think it's as simple as writing the whole lands off just because they don't care about them. The Unsullied may be in a foreign land but they could just sack everything in their path. Again, what army is standing in their way?
If the Lannisters have shown anything time and again, it's that they don't give a shit about the common folk. They use them as pawns to manipulate other leaders who actually care about the well being of their people. They sent the Mountain to pillage and burn the Riverlands because Catelyn Stark took Tyrion captive and she was related to the Lord of the Riverlands. Basically murdered thousands of innocent people.
Ultimately the Unsullied will have to plunder food and supplies as they march... making the common folk hate the foreign invaders and support the Lannister/Westerosi defenders more.
you're talking about the Riverlands. I am talking about the lands the Lannisters hold around Castlery Rock
Yea Jaime said they emptied it when talking to Olenna.
1. In the TV show it's around 15,000 at the current time, including the 10,000 man army that marched on Highgarden. TV show armies are a good bit smaller than the armies listed in the books.
3. All the Freys are dead. One of the minor houses from the Riverlands will be elevated to Lord of the Riverlands, but they haven't mentioned who yet. Maybe Edmure Tully will regain Riverrun? TBD. In the meantime the Crown sent some Lannister forces to the Riverlands to keep the peace. These forces were likely recalled to some degree to march on Highgarden. Basically for the time being, the Crown directly rules the Stormlands, the Riverlands, the Westerlands, and now the Reach too, unless Randall Tarly is elevated to Lord of the Reach.
4. The Lannisters emptied the Casterly Rock storerooms. Greyworm is holding a great castle but has no food to sustain his army. Plus, having your Unsullied sitting around in a castle is a waste of a great fighting force. They'll have to march across Westeros, plundering along the way to feed themselves, which will turn the common folk against those "foreign invaders". Nevermind the Lannisters & Starks did pretty much the exact same thing a couple years previously.
6. I think Euron's ships just caught up to the Unsullied/Tyrell fleet. No need for him to ride night and day to cross the continent, he just hops back in his ships and heads out. I think it's fair to assume the IronBorn ships are faster than the Tyrell ships.
1 & 4. If 10,000 marched on Highgarden then nothing stops the Unsullied marching wherever they please so long as they don't go South. Someone send a raven to GreyWorm and tell him to go take the Frey lands and hold the towers. Nothing stops them from getting there and no way a 10,000 man army gets there to intercept in time from HighGarden.
6. Sure. Plausible either way.
Yeah, taking The Twins and stationing a force there would actually add some strategic value. At the very least it keeps the Lannisters from taking it away from a Stark / Arryn army coming down from Winterfell to help out. Then the majority of the Unsullied could march down the kings road
One thing to consider is that the Unsullied are all foot soldiers, while the Westerosi armies are a mix of foot and cavalry. So it's possible some cavalry elements could catch up to them... Luckily for the Unsullied they have the perfect weapon to use against cavalry.. discipline.. and spears.
Doesn't using ravens require Maesters? Greyworm doesn't have one. Neither does the Wall, which explains why Dolores Edd didn't just send a raven to Winterfell from the Wall telling Jon that Bran showed up.
who needs ravens when you have the Dragon Express Delivery Service?
that's a good point.
But thinking about it, there is no way the Unsullied did not have fall back plans. You don't send a major part of your army around the known world to infiltrate and sack a place far removed without working out the contingencies.
If they need food I don't see why they couldn't just take from neighboring Lannisport, sack it, lay waste to all of Lannister lands on their way to wherever their fallback position is. More and more the whole, 'we took everything with us' just seems implausible. Lannister lands are massive. They didn't take it all. The Unsullied would have no issue to take whatever they want.
You are correct. The Unsullied will sack the surrounding area. But the Lannister plan wasn't to starve the Unsullied, it was to cut them off and make them march and plunder their way all the way back to Dragonstone. Marching while obtaining supplies takes a lot longer than marching with supplies. This takes them out of the picture for a good chunk of time while leaving Dany much less protected and, as has been pointed out, helps push the narrative of the evil foreigners destroying everything garnering public support for Cersei. Besides, any important lords and able-bodied men from those lands are most likely with the Lannister army. Yes, the farms will be plundered, but all the crops will have been harvested and most of them sent to King's Landing for the war and the long winter. And it's not like the Unsullied are going to rape anyone left behind.
I'm not saying you're wrong and i realize its all made up and i am being overly logical... But Lannisport is a sizable enough city for all the wagons and supplies they likely need. It's the 3rd largest city in Westeros with 250k people.
I think in some instances having read the books can skew how someone watches the show. I have not read the books, so I had no idea that Lannisport was that large or important. I think if you look at it solely from the show's perspective and only think about what has been shown or discussed in the show, it may be easier to see why they haven't really addressed your concerns. They have barely mentioned Lannisport or all of the people that live there. Have we even seen a single scene there? So it is not a stretch to think that they are just going to gloss over that detail. When (If) Martin writes this part of the story, you will probably get the answers you are looking for.
For sure and like I said I totally think you are correct in the explanation.
Wonder if Sansa sent a raven to Jon saying Bran was back at Winterfell and desperately needed to talk to him?
He also said that night you got stabbed in the heart. You looked beautiful!
Dany is going to send in the Dothraki and the Dragons to save Grey Worm and Co (Jamie and the Lannister army are going to try and cut them off on their march out of there) then once they regroup they are going to march on Kings Landing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we see in the trailers for the season Lannister soldiers clashing directly with Unsullied, in what looks to be Casterly Rock?
Not that the Unsullied havn't demonstrated their abilities already, but I get the feeling we will see them unleash the fury against footsoldiers that aren't as committed.
We did see the Lannister soldiers clashing directly with the Unsullied, in Casterly Rock...there was a skeleton crew of Lannisters left behind to face off with them
Oh.
My.
God.
That was brutal, every principal character that I like clashing with each other. Holy Drogon.
I had made mental preparations for Bronn, Jamie, Dany, and Drogon to all die at one point in that episode.
But I don't think any of them died.
I was never convinced Jaime or Dany would at this point, but I was with you on Bronn & Drogon. I think Bronn & Jaime live another day, but I wouldn't want to be swimming in Jaime's armor, much less with one hand.
I think of the of the dragons dies - but I didn't think it'd be Drogon. But I was legit thought it was going to happen. I was very convinced Jamie was done.
Side discussion: At this point, who takes the prize for best one-on-one fighter. Prior to this episode I would have said Brienne had a legit claim but Arya came in and gave her everything she could handle.
John Snow has probably the thickest plot armor
I would have said Brienne had an argument but Arya worked her over multiple times.
Pre-hand loss Jaime has an argument. Jon Snow probably isn't but he has the most fanboys so a lot of people would probably say he's the best. Oberyn would have had an argument for best one on one fighter if he was alive for sure, he made the Mountain look like a little bitch. But also you have to factor in all the Braavosi guys, there could be some random guy from there who is better than all of them potentially.
I think Arya had the advantage over Brienne at first because she didn't know Arya was that good and probably didn't want to hurt her. When they went full go in the final spar she knocked needle from Arya's hand and they ended up in a draw.
I'll put it this way, I'd still rather have Brienne in battle scenario. But one on one, Arya was too quick and her footwork was fantastic, as an assassin type fighter, she would likely get the best of the slower, more powerful Brienne. And if I had to put money on it, I'd take Oberyn one on one with anyone.
Disagree, no one is better
Great episode.
Finally Tyrion starts being Tyrion, assuming he came up with that plan.
Not as good as Battle of the Bastards but still a great battle scene.
Also equally enjoyable the duel with Arya. Seeing how much she really is a badass is cool. Not sure why Littlefinger is smiling though. He should be shitting his pants. A thought though, perhaps after Arya kills him she leads the Vale armies to liberate the Riverlands....Interesting....
I doubt that was Tyrion's plan. I think she brought him along more as a "watch this" kinda deal.
I'd agree it's seems like her type of idea buttttttt will be interesting how Tyrion acts of she imprisons Jamie if he swim himself back to the surface or not we shall see no way a major player drowns in his own armor so early on
Maybe because she used his dagger
So much for going to bed early tonight. Holy shit game of thrones.
I'm down with this whole battle of the bastards and now bronn going ham on the battlefield cam bits really gives you a serious taste can say that episode was stressful as crap but just under battle of the bastards stressful, I was convinced we were gonna get some big death but we got 3 episodes left so it's bout to rain death on these characters
Edit: reallly liked the whole bit with Jamie having every excuse in the 7 kingdoms to pull a theon and abandon ship but instead charging a really pissed off dragon when he had absolutely no reason too except for the fact that he's known as kingslayer and as much as cersi is a cold bitch who couldn't care less what's thought of her he's the opposite of her in that aspect and I feel he's been trying to shake that whole kingslayer image the entire show
I honestly thought Bronn and Drogon were gonna kill each other while staring each other down. Holy shit what an episode!!!
Great episode still wish there were more of them or the episodes were longer.
Arya fight scene was awesome I'd like to see how they did that one in real life. Also anyone point to where they film the beach scenes with that crazy long walkway from the cliffs of Dragonatone?
I think the beach scenes were filmed in Belfast Ireland? And I actually had thoughts arya might kill breanne just cause that seemed fitting for the show but alas shes just waiting to get littlefinger alone then bye bye little guy
Fam, that was LIT
Gotta be honest. Proud of my boy, Grey Worm, giving Missandei "many things" despite being ill-equipped.
So does he not have a cock or balls? Or both? I remember that they were cut down in some way but don't remember a specific explanation of what.
When the slavers castrate the boys, they take both the pillar and the stones
Shudders....poor bastards....
I wonder if Cercei gets news that Jamie died, then goes mad crazy, only to have him come back to kill her (as I'm pretty sure that's what will happen). He then joins forces with Dany and Jon to fight the real fight up north. Crazy theory?
I was going to say I knew Jaime couldn't die because he's still gotta kill Cersei
Or Arya could kill him and use his face to kill Cersei
So the Lannisters at this point are pretty much fucked. They can't pay off the Iron Bank (though, not sure they could have possibly foreshadowed that any more than they did) and their army from Casterly Rock is wiped out. Kings Landing is a sitting duck and they don't have the money to pay anyone to come to their aid. Oh, and they have a really pissed off dragon ready to wreck shit. We're about to watch an empire crumble from within before it gets wiped off the face of Westeros.
Oh, and I can't wait for Arya to Murder Death Kill Littlefinger with his own dagger. That should be fun.
That episode was only 57 minutes long, including HBO ads at the beginning. I guess this means the remainder of the season will be the ones with episodes around 80-90 minutes each?
I thought the whole point of the scene right before the attack was this was just the supply train part of the army the rest had already made it inside the gates of Kings Lading?
Yeah, the gold is already there, and the convoy that Daenarys attacked was only a small portion of the army that's marching up to King's Landing. She did destroy a huge food supply, but not a lot of troops, in the grand scheme of things. Likely, Cersei will receive news that Jaime is missing amidst the post-dragon carnage and she will do something rash that will leave her vulnerable later on.
I think the attack was brilliant on Dany's part. After Jon called her out for being no better than the others if she just burned Kings Landing down, I thought this was a great way to send a message revealing that the rumors of the dragons are indeed true to everyone on team Cersei while taking the least amount of lives.
It really was. The attack had both shock (dragons are real after all!) and strategic (kill Lannister soldiers and burn their food) value, without massacring a bunch of innocent smallfolk.
It also allowed her to use the Dothraki at their best in an open field rather than storming a compound. I don't know why she burned the food supply as she will also have to feed her army and the convoy was freshly removed from Castely Rock where her unsullied are stuck.
She burned the food supply to starve out kings landing. Ultimately starving small folk are going to revolt before grabbing weapons and fighting against 3 dragons. Add to that an army that also has no food. Great tactic.
It was more psychological than anything. It's fairly obvious that she didn't need Drogon to win this battle. The Dothraki had the battle won. She wanted to use Drogon to destroy the supply chain and the soldiers to assure to everyone in Westeros that the dragon rumors are true.
Using a dragon was psychological. Burning the supplies was tactics.
Bit of both.
I assumed she was there to steal the food supply, thus starving out Kings Landing and re-supplying her army
Pretty sure the gold was priority #1, and that made it in. That said, I don't think the entire convoy made it through the gates. There were LOTS of wagons that went up in flames in that battle.
Also, all the battle scenes have a common theme: it sucks to be a horse in Westeros.
Randal Tarly had already delivered the gold. Iron Bank will re-loan to Cersei to hire the Golden Army, which should be interesting since they were essentially started by Targaryens. Wonder if they pull a Braveheart and switch sides to follow their historical bloodline. Also perhaps that's where Jon Connington and "young Griff" aka Aegon finally enter the storyline.
As Guitarman said, that was only part of the Lannister army. Not the 10,000 that rode on Highgarden.
They are really giving Bronn a large role. Wonder if he ever returns in the Books. He is already so different but loved him suggesting he just take Highgarden.
At this point in the show, having Connington and Griff show up would be WAY too deus ex machina for the show.
*BOOK SPOILERS*
I really think Griff and Connington were cut completely, and Connington's greyscale affliction was rolled into Jorah Mormont's storyline. And possibly Jon Snow is a Targaryen now because Griff was cut. That wasn't stated in the books necessarily IIRC.
The hints were there for Jon to be a Targaryen with or without Griff in the show as well as the books
Would be very interesting twist if somehow Dario has become involved with the Golden Company since we last saw him.
I agree, I liked seeing Bronn last night, and he was pretty badass.
Jorah was part of the golden company before joining Danny FYI could be a big thing since he's now cured and out to help Danny
Everyone else already answered most of your points, but with regards to runtime. That episode had an actual airtime of 50 minutes. Episode 5 is
probably the best in the OT if not the whole series59 minutes, Episode 6 is 71 minutes, and episode 7 is 81 minutes IIRC.While the supply train attack sequence was awesome, I was really most interested in the Dragonstone reveal. All the symbols from the Children of the Forest were carved there, echoing back to all of the symbols the White Walkers leave behind, even going back to the pilot episode. I'm really wondering if we're going to get an explainer on the mythology there, and more on the White Walker origins. I suppose the show will have to reveal the exact connection between the Night King's powers, the Children's, the Old Gods, etc. There are a lot of interesting details that have yet to be revealed.
We've already seen the Children literally make the Night King.
Would be interesting to see a bit more of the origin story there for sure
That's what I mean. Obviously the Children created him and we know he was meant as a weapon that backfired, but I'm curious if there's more to the origins of the power, if the symbols have significance - beating the Walkers, maybe? Meaningful Westerosi history? Why do the Walkers leave symbols in their kills?
Also: something that has been on my mind. The Night King was created by having a dragonglass shard pushed into his heart. The other White Walkers are killed by dragonglass. We have seen that other White Walkers are created from men, by the Night King's touch, without dragonglass. Is the Night King vulnerable to dragonglass, or something else? Benjen/Coldhands is also alive because of a dragonglass shard, but he's not a White Walker, just undead. So what's the connection; how does it all tie together?
could you explain the Benjen dragonglass connection
When Benjen meets up with Bran he explains that in his time beyond the wall, he was attacked by white walkers and left for dead/to turn into a ww, but the children of the forest found him and saved him by shoving dragonglass into his chest.
I don't think it's ever been explained how they saved him using the same technique they used to create white walkers in the first place
This is why I'm so interested in the mythology. Dragonglass seems to do all kinds of things, even some (like this exact case) that conflict with others. So what's behind it? Intent? Different magic? Giant plot hole (unlikely given GRRM's attention to detail)?
I wonder if it just has something to do with the morals/heart of the person they're shoving it into. Bad guy=Night King, Good Guy=Zombie Benjen
Seems unlikely, given GRRM's style. No one is good or evil, they're all on a continuum. Maybe that means Night King = net evil and Benjen = net good, but that seems a little weak to me. Did the Children know what was in the First Man's heart (metaphorically speaking) before killing/transforming him? Or did they just invoke the Old Gods' magic in the way they wanted? They had considerable power, including shattering the arm of Dorne through their greenseers.
Yeah, this makes more sense. A little googling about it leads me to believe there's just a different ritual they perform that would lead to different results
I wonder if Qyburn used Dragonglass in some way to create Zombie Mountain?
Makes me wonder if shoving dragonglass into a white walker's heart will turn them into an undead version of their former selves a la Benjen?
Can we stop pretending Jon didn't do all that with a knife before Dany came in?
/s
Are you saying that Jon might have to take another dagger in the heart and be brought back from the dead by the red witch again to make Dany believe in the possibility of someone reviving the dead ?
Does anyone else think it's a little strange that there are symbols showing the Children working with the First Men to fight the white walkers? The Children created the white walkers as a defense AGAINST men. Any thoughts here?
Basically, they didn't realize the magnitude of what they were doing by creating the Night King as a weapon against the First Men. They created him thinking they could control him, but they were wrong.
Maybe, but why would the First Men just turn around and trust the Children that unleashed this on them? People in the show don't seem to ever let go of grudges and this one would be major.
It was thousands of years later when they made a peace agreement, so it's not like they just up and forgave them for it
Sauce
Thank you, I had completely forgotten this part of the history. On an unrelated note, with all that about the Children having the ability to unleash large tidal waves and break apart land masses, what're the odds they caused the Doom that wiped out all of Old Valyria?
Good question
Not if you go by the book timeline. The show is condensing events, but The Doom and shattering the Arm of Dorne are a long way apart in the book canon. The Arm of Dorne was shattered about 12,000 years before Aegon's conquest, whereas the Doom occurred 114 years before the conquest. The shattering of the Arm was done with tidal waves, the Doom was due (from available descriptions) to volcanic eruptions.
I'm not saying the events necessarily need to be related. I'm just suggesting that the Children might have the ability. Maybe they aren't all north of the wall and wanted to sink that civilization for whatever reason.
I would love to see it, but why are we so sure that Arya's going to kill Littlefinger? She already has his dagger, so the theory that she kills him and takes it is out the window. To my knowledge, Arya doesn't know he was the one who sold out Ned. He's not on her list, and it doesn't seem like Sansa is going to try to convince her to do it. Will Bran tell Arya about it? That would be a pretty vindictive move, out of character for the Three Eyed Raven
See it more like this: Jon returns they have a Stark reunion to tell tales. Arya finds out what Littlefinger did to Sansa and is about to go kill him as he just made the list but is stopped because they need his influence over the Vale. But Arya only needs his face not all of Littlefinger, so off she goes to kill him anyway. Boom
I like it.
Oh very true... They only need someone to look like Littlefinger to have control over the Vale. Really, Arya could off him and be the leader of the Vale in her spare time.
Probably because it's the Arya thing to do.
I was absolutely terrified that Jaime, Bronn, and/or Drogon were going to be killed in that episode and I was not emotionally prepared to handle that. I know Jaime will die eventually, there is simply no place for him in a "new world" after Westeros is flipped upside down and the Walkers are defeated, but I wasn't ready to watch it happen that night. Plus Bronn is one of those side characters that is just so damn lovable.
Not to mention, Tyrion almost had to watch (in addition to actually watching his own people killed) Jaime and Bronn, two of the only people who were ever kind or friends with Tyrion, die by the side he is actively helping. It would have certainly been a tough moment for him.
I thought for sure he was about to watch his brother roast.
The possibilities about how the series might end are becoming intriguing. Have heard many theories about how Arya will be killed off soon as she has outlived her usefulness, but could her getting a blade made of Vallerian steel mean that she could be the one to kill off the Night King during the final battle ? Would be a real bummer if the only one left standing at the end of the show was Theon Grayjoy, his uncle, or little finger. I know one person who is even rooting for the Night King out of the exhaustion this program has put them through.
I'm definitely a believer that Arya will be the one to kill the Night King. Now that Bran has gone full "Three-Eyed Raven" crazy, I don't see him doing anything else on the show that doesn't have something to do with fighting the frosty dead guys.
Sure, he could be giving Arya the dagger because he knows she's a fighter and would use it well, but that's more along the lines of "Bran's Memories" and not something I think the Three-Eyed Raven would bother with.
I still can't make up my mind on my favorite part of the episode last night.
Daavos saying "fewer" or Arya replying "noone" after Brienne asked her from whom she learned her moves.
On second thought, the "chaos is a ladder" mindfuck of a callback to Season 3 that Bran said to Littlefinger might be the best part
My wife didn't catch the "chaos is a ladder" reference, but Littlefingers reaction was pure gold and just a very well done scene.
I liked Jon's council to Dany as well, that if she burned cities to the ground she is no better than any of the other rulers the Seven Kingdoms have had lately. Davos face at that moment told you all you need to know about Jons leadership ability
Davos' face was like a father who was sooooooooooooooooooooo proud of his son for being a big boy
Refresh my memory or both of those if you would.
"Fewer" is a callback to Stannis correcting Davos' grammar.
"No one" is a cheeky way of Arya telling the truth without giving anything away (taught to be "No One" by the Faceless Men).
Translation: Bran just told Littlefinger that he knows everything about him. Nothing is secret from the Three-Eyed Raven.
I got no one, the fewer one and the chaos is a ladder I couldn't recall.
Interesting way of saying "No One" and thanks for the video as I missed the episode that had that "chaos is a ladder" speech. Helps understand the character much better.
The third part will be fun to watch play out. The world's best con artist is going to have a hard time staying alive now that there's a walking, talking, 100% reliable lie detector in town. I could easily see Bran just flat out telling Arya the truth and her killing Littlefinger, but really hoping it's more entertaining than that.
The "No one" was pretty simply her echoing what the Faceless Men taught her, that she was No One. Nice little callback to Jaqen's training. She is No One and No One taught her.
The "chaos is a ladder" was a comment Littlefinger made to Varys right before leaving on the ship after Joffrey's assassination. That was a private conversation between only the two of them. So Bran saying it to him was a big "I can see everything you dick" moment to him.
HBO has released the title of episode 5: "Eastwatch" Run time is 75 minutes total (so probably about 67 or so when you cut out HBO's promos at the intro, the title sequence, and credits).
Looks like we're about to get a big-time update on the White Walkers.
The preview for next week seemed to tease that there would be some White Walker developments as well.
So we finally get to see Beric's flaming-sword in action, and the newly fire-god worshiping Hound. AND TORMUND
That won't be for another episode or two. The Beric, Hound, and Jon fight scenes occur north of the Wall. Jon's still at Dragonstone. The episode preview has Jon saying that Bran knows about the Night King marching on Eastwatch, so word has gotten to him and will likely spur his return to the North.
I thought that as of the last that we heard from those dudes, they were all headed to Eastwatch?
Tormund was taking the Wildlings to man Eastwatch. Beric and the Brotherhood are still making their way North and were last seen at the Riverlands cottage where the Hound had murdered the farmer and his daughter. The preview scenes that have been released appear to be further to the North, suggesting that Tormund may face the fight first, prompting reinforcements (Jon, Beric, the Hound, et al) to arrive and pursue the Night King.
Good points. However, the Hound didn't murder the farmer and daughter, he just took all their money, which may have resulted in their starvation.
Whats the source for 75 minute runtime? All the sources from before the season started with official airtimes quote episode 5 will be 59 minutes.
Was anyone else picking up the major "Jon and Dany hot Targaryen attraction" vibes last night as well?
Could be a red herring, but as mentioned in this thread would certainly fit the Targaryen mold,
They mentioned it explicitly on the "inside the episode" bit after the episode ends.
Something along the lines of "This is also where you can see they begin to be attracted to each other"
I didn't catch the Inside the Episode afterwards, but good to see confirmation of that.
Davos noticed. With a smile on his face he said to Jon when they were talking about Dany,"You weren't looking at her huge heart."
Davos went full-on Dad mode in that scene and I thought it was hilarious.
Prediction: Jon won't bend the knee, but he'll offer an alliance by marriage.
I totally agree, that they are hammering home "bend the knee" so they can turn it into him kneeling and proposing to her.
While we're making predictions, here is my ridiculous one:
Jon and the Night King have an epic sword fight. Just when it looks like Jon will lose, a zombie/wight staggers into the battle, getting close to the Night King. He looks at it with a confused look, then the wight stabs the Night King with Littlefinger's dagger. The wight pulls off its face to reveal Arya. The whole scene is a call-back to Howland Reed stabbing Ser Arthur Dayne in the back to save Ned Stark at the Tower of Joy.
That would be wild.
Would indeed be wild but something tells me the Night King would know if the arya wight was actually undead or not. But i would go with it if you're right.
I know it is totally ridiculous. I would probably lose some respect for them if it played out that way. Benioff and Weiss together are not half the writer that Martin is, so I have come to expect some level of cheesiness and or disappointment from them.
Didn't even notice this last night and not sure if it's been mentioned but Noah Syndergaard made a cameo last night throwing a spear through a Dothraki.
So many good little moments. Bronn laughing at Dickon's name. Davos telling Jon that he noticed him checking Dany out. No one. Fewer. Chaos is a ladder, followed by Littlefinger shitting himself for a beat before regaining his composure, some really good facial acting there. I got goosebumps when Dany said "Dracarys" on top of Drogon.
I am also wondering if Littlefinger gave the dagger to Bran, knowing full well that he would give it away, possibly to Arya. Like Bran said, "What use is it to a cripple?" He seemed happy to see her wielding it when she was dueling with Brienne. Had she arrived at Winterfell yet when he gave it to Bran? He was one of only a few people who knew she was still alive since he was there at Harrenhal meeting with Tywin when she was posing as a servant girl. In that scene, he looked at her for a beat before putting back on his blank, show-nothing face, like he recognized her. He is always playing the long game, so maybe he thinks she will use to avenge Bran by using it to go after Cersei. Or, this part I doubt, maybe he knows that she killed the Freys, and is "rewarding" her by giving her the dagger that the Freys used to kill her mother.
So it happened pretty quickly at the end so I probably just missed it but was it definitely Bronn that tackled Jaime into the water? And if not, who could it have been? Diccon? Did Jon tag along on the raid and decide to intervene for some reason?
Could have been Dickon, but he had already saved Jaime once, so from a storytelling perspective, it's probably not him. Most people I've seen agree it was Bronn due to the horse he was riding and the fact that a few minutes earlier, he had taken a look at his bag of gold and effectively said, "screw it, I'll fight for them." It makes more narrative sense to have Bronn save Jaime as a sign that he cares more than he lets on. He could have taken his money and run, but he didn't, instead deciding to stare down a dragon.
It wasn't Jon. He's still at Dragonstone when Theon arrives and would have no way to catch up to Daenarys and the Dothraki.
Also Bronn was close by having just escaped the burning of the scorpion and thus nearby the then standing Drogon.
Most importantly, Bronn is wearing leather armor. So he can help Jaime who is sinking like a stone in his metal armor with only one good hand to try to take some of it off. If it was Dickon, he'd be sinking to the bottom just like Jaime. So Jaime is either helped by Bronn or Drogon fishes him out.
Also, in the season trailer, there's that quick clip of possibly Bronn in the fighting pits. So might be him and they get captured.
I'm not sure the horse Bronn was riding would really be helpful...Bronn was thrown from his horse when the Dothraki screamer cut its leg off. Something tells me it's some other character, maybe someone we aren't even aware of.
After escaping the scorpion before Drogon roasted it, he clearly fixes his eyes on a white horse and it's strongly implied he got on it. Additionally, the leather armor of the tackler seems to look like Bronn's. It could be someone else, but it's very likely Bronn.
Nice, I must've missed the part with the white horse
I thought (or just assumed) it was Dick On the first time I watched the episode. The second time around, I noticed how they show Bronn looking at a white riderless horse for what felt like an extended period of time.
I agree that it being Dick On wouldn't really make much sense unless the showrunners are looking to add a somewhat important character way late in the game.
Twitter says it was Braun
awesome
F16? Not exactly... let me introduce you to...
Brrrrrrrrrttt!!!
Definitely a much better comparison.
I'm still laughing at this.
The Dickon jokes have been awesome comedic relief. I hope they continue but I also hope Dickon meets some gruesome end so that I can scream "NOOOO DICKOOOON!!"
NOOOOOOO DICKOOOOOON!!!!!
*spoiler spoiler spoiler* snow=targaryn
It's high septon journal official!
GENDRY STOPPED ROWING !!
I really forgot his entire storyline and put it on Podrick
It's about to go down next week.
Really Sam, you had the answer right there.
So close, but it damn near confirmed it. R and L got hitched and popped out a J.
Such a great way to really drive it home on R+L=J. Such a throwaway moment of comic relief there, but the real confirm to me was the dragon and Jon meeting and the look on Danys face
I was really disappointed that Dany didn't also laugh at Dickon's name before she had him roasted
Was really hoping for a "dickon fire" joke as well.
Okay, to paraphrase that Karate Kid movie, "Dickon" "Dickoff" (sorry it's the best I could do on short notice).
,
So if she's the mother of dragons, does that make Jon their cousin? "Jon Snow, King in the North, Cousin of Dragons" has a nice ring to it.
Anyone else think Cersei isn't really pregnant and is just using it to keep Jaime closer?
Literally the first thing that came to my mind
I think she actually is pregnant. Right before Jaime walked in, she was holding her belly and Qyburn said something like, "I can give you something for that" as if she needed pain medication for it.
So that would mean Jon has more claim to the throne than Dany, depending on who you ask. Right?
Also, did anyone else pick up the foreshadowing during Tyrion and Jamie's conversation? Tyrion was framed in front of Balerion's skull. A+J=T, anyone? (full disclosure I am a HUGE homer for this theory).
Correct on point 1.
Agree on point 2. Also big fan of this
Rhaegar (sp?) was the son of the mad king, so that would make Jonboy his grandson. Dany was the mad king's daughter, so when Rhagar died, it would've jumped to the douchey Targ brother, then he died, then it jumped to Dany. If Rhaegar had lived to become king, then Jon would have more claim from the bloodright standpoint I think. (I'm sure I missed a Targ or two in the line of succession, but you get the idea.)
As the crown prince, upon Rhaegar's death, his claim to the throne passes directly to his eldest living male heir, which is Jon. So the claim bypasses Viserys and Danaerys entirely.
this is correct. the fact that he had an annulment means Jon is not a bastard and hence rightful heir.
Yep, they're setting us up for a big moment of conflict, when Jon's history is revealed, which simultaneously informs Danaerys that she actually has no claim to the Iron Throne after all. How that unfolds will be interesting...
The real question is where is the hard link? Does the book Gilly was reading reference the boy? If so it certainly doesn't say the baby's name is Jon Snow. Perhaps it notes that the baby was taken into custody by Ned Stark after the death of its mother?
I think the conflict with Dany and Jon is gonna be solved with some good ole fashioned Targ bloodline love. Dany can't have children and Jon, who is technically a wight of the Lord of Fire, likely cannot have a baby either. Or maybe that means they have dragons? ...hmm....
Thinking like that might produce another Night King, or Stephen King, I'm not sure which. :--)
So you're telling me dany lays eggs like a chicken or gives birth to live dragons? Both sound pleasant ways
The lineage doesn't really matter any more in terms of succession. Robert Baratheon led a successful rebellion of Westeros and became King by Right of Conquest. Lineage played a small part in his selection of John Arryn or Ned Stark, but ultimately it was Robert's Rebellion and he won.
But ultimately that conquest resets any lineage-related claims to the throne by Targaryen heirs.
It's on the Baratheon / Lannister dynasty now. With the Baratheons basically wiped out aside from a bastard son (Gendry), and Robert's wife becoming Queen Regnant by having the most military support (Lannister armies) when her children all died, it's basically a Lannister dynasty now. Technically a council of lords should have been convened to select a new ruler when Tommen died, leaving no "Baratheon" heirs, but clearly Cersei made a power play and people went along because of her military strength. Who knows, maybe Cersei arranged for a stacked council to select her to give our an air of legitimacy, but she basically strong-armed her way to the throne with a less-obvious conquest than Roberts. So now we have a Lannister dynasty starting up. It's unclear if Cersei switched back to using Lannister of she still goes by Cersei Baratheon, but there are Lannister lions everywhere around Kings Landing now. Either way she'll be Cersei Lannister again when she marries Jamie. (which is happening because decency demands that Jaime marry the mother of his kids, right?)
Anyways, Viserys, Dany, Jon, Euron, Ellaria, the Night King... any of them would have to claim the Iron Throne by conquest. Having a connection to previous dynasty can help raise support for that rebellion, but Cersei isn't going to be like "Ohhh you're a Targaryen Jon, directly descended from the previous King? Why didn't anyone tell me? Here have the throne back!" The commoners are not going to revolt suddenly because the Mad King's grandson makes an appearance either.
Obviously former heirs are dangerous because they are very likely to attempt to take the throne back via conquest, feeling they are justified in doing so because of their lineage, and may even still have allies (like houses favored under their previous dynasty)... that's why Robert wanted all the Targaryen children hunted down and killed.
Now that Dany and Jon are on the way to teaming up, it's possible we get a situation where lineage matters if they're successful and a new ruler has to be selected from the victorious leaders. A careful analysis of lineage would point to Jon having the stronger link to the throne, but he may not want it.
Roberts grandma was a Targaryen, thus allowing his claim to technically be linage based.
great point... and this
That's partly why he was selected over Ned and John Arryn, but mostly he was picked because Ned didn't want any part of being King and Robert was gregarious and influential. The lineage angle just helped tie everything up in a neat bow and IIRC didn't really even come up until after the rebellion was over and the victors were settling on who would be King.
Except lineage does matter to Westeros, everywhere.
Yes, to the victor go the spoils. But look at the clamoring after Robert's death as to who was "really" his successor. Stannis and Renly only had a chance because everyone believed in the Cersei and Jaime rumors. if those weren't true then none of those challenges would have happened. That goes the same for every noble house.
And it's the way the Targaryen's have ruled for so long. Dany may not want to give up power but even she used the argument of precedent in their lineage of Ned's father bending knee to Dany's grandfather. That stuff matters and its deep in the culture. If Westerosi know the truth about Jon Snow really being the heir to the throne who would they support?
The Westerosi born and raised savior of the Night Watch, tamer of the Wildlings, King of the North and ultimately the one that alerted/possibly saves them all from the White Walkers... or... the girl on the dragons that burned everyone that stood against her including Noble lords? It's not a question if it matters to Dany at that point it will matter to everyone else. Now Jon may not care for it, or Dany may fight for it anyway ... but saying lineage doesn't matter anymore is just wrong.
It'll be really interesting if Dany finds out about Jon's lineage before he does and what kind of decisions she makes based on that...
Now note the dropping of a few hints last episode where they referred to the Wildlings as the Freemen. this is a wink that by nature Jon and Dany are not far off in their natural bent.
Sam and Jon better hope Gilly brought the book with her.
This also means that Sam is potentially now the heir of the Tarly house, no? I mean, I know that he is technically still bound by the Night's Watch oath, but that whole thing seems to have been glossed over in recent past, and with him being the eldest son still alive... And if I remember correctly, he didn't exactly like his father or brother, so maybe this helps align the Tarly's with at least the Starks, if not Dany?
Yeah, there's an interesting power vacuum in The Reach right now. My assumption is that whoever takes power (Jon, Dany, or both) will release Sam from his vow by royal decree and allow him (and the precious Valyrian sword) to head House Tarly again as Warden of the South.
that would be really cool to see Sam take over the whole Reach
Which brings up a question I have...where is Sam, Gilley, and Lil Sam heading now? Surely not back to the wall (he had on bis black when he leaving, but that's probably the only clothes he has now). Winterfell would make sense.
I have a feeling Sam will head towards Winterfell to reunite with Jon and somehow find out about Jon's true identity through Bran.
I did zero research on my comment, so there ya go. I just figured it went from child to child until that king died. *TheMoreYaKnow.gif*
who is A and J in this scenario?
A+J=T, the theory that Tyrion Lannister is not the son of Tywin Lannister, but rather the offspring of the Mad King, King Aerys II Targaryen, and Tywin's wife and cousin, Joanna Lannister, to whom the Mad King was notoriously attracted.
You know, now that the theory has been explained, there was that scene in the dungeon where Tyrion wants to see the dragons and the two allow Tyrion to take their chains off them....hmm, very interesting theory. Thank you so much for explaining it!
Oh good call, I had forgotten about that scene
Very interesting, indeed.
Also Tyrion has always been fascinated with Dragons and during his time in Kings Landing spent a lot of time in the crypts studying them.
Also there is the notion that the Dragon always has 3 heads. Rhaegar thought he was fulfilling this prophecy by having 3 children (2 with his first wife and one with Ned's sister) but in actuality the 3 heads can be any 3 Targaryens. In this case the theory is that Dany, Jon and Tyrion are the 3 dragon riders.
Which would mean he was actually a bastard not just in his fathers eyes
Not really a bastard, but a love child from an affair. We know who his father is.
Not to be super pedantic, but that's literally the definition of a bastard. It doesn't mean "unknown father." We know* who Jon's father is, as he's always referred to as "Ned Stark's bastard son."
* Yes, this is incorrect, but from the perspective of nearly all the characters in the show, this is what is said.
alright, fair enough
On point 1, I don't think that Jon (Jaehaerys?) has a better claim to the throne than Dany, as he gave up any claims (even those he didn't know he had) when he joined the Night's Watch. His watch was ended upon his death, but that doesn't necessarily restore his claims.
Here's my biggest and frankly only problem with this show, the damn thing is ending. I'm reading the books but frankly a show is better for my schedule but it's all coming to a end. What the shit are we gonna do when it's all over? Will there ever be a show to rival GOT?
As much as the movie apparently tanked, I am a big proponent that HBO should jump at the chance of airing a Dark Tower series. Those books lend themselves very well to a multi-season quest.
Westworld had a pretty damn good Season 1
Season 2 isn't due out til late 2018 or 2019
Right, so a perfect replacement after, maybe even before Thrones wraps up
HBO currently has plans to do one or more prequels to GoT. Though it will probably be at least a few years after season 8 airs.
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/hbo-clarifies-game-of-thrones-preque...
They'll somehow find a way to re-kill Sean Bean though.
I laughed way too hard at this.
What happened to Euron and Yara? That plot line disappeared abruptly. I thought we might get a short scene that would bump their plot along as well as a little something from Dany and her council about a plan for the Unsullied.
I'm also beginning to seriously wonder if Dany is going to go full Mad Queen. Her obsession with making people 'bend the knee' and immediately killing those who don't is....
Its not good
She trying to take over a huge land mass of people that know almost nothing about her with foreign armies and a rag tag group of westorsi outsiders, what do you expect her to do? Ask for peoples allegiance while giving them milk and cookies?
The only thing she can do is show overwhelming power with just moral. She demands people bend the knee to break their will. If they do they were spared, if not she did exactly what she said she would do.
Power is her only gambit right now. How and where she demonstrates that power is the key, which is the point Jon made to her about burning Kings Landing. Once she takes power she can show compassion. Or she can find the places to give compassion along the way, much like her conquest through Slaver's Bay.
I actually did not get any Mad Queen vibe from that BBQ scene last night, even though Tyrion's reaction was clearly meant to imply it to us.
As stated above, the ONLY thing she has now to bring Westerosi in line is power, and a relatively reasonable and appropriate exercise there of. She decided not to use the type of display of power that Jon counciled against. That would have been Mad Queen stuff there. She can show compassion later, but to take over a # of kingdoms aligned against you with no reason to just turn around and support you (As Randyll Tarly made quite clear that he could not support a foreigner), sometimes you have to roast a few Dickons.
The Tarly's were enemies on the battlefield. She gave them a choice, and she kept her word to those that kneeled. That came across to me as much more of an Aegon Targaryen move. Think about how many Great Houses were snuffed out and their 2nd in command that kneeled placed as Wardens. I know for a fact that's how the Tyrells came to control the Reach, for example.
I mean, her house words are "Fire and Blood," not "Tea and Negotiations."
I think the show definitely wants that to be something we worry about, but while Dany burns people a fair amount it's not close to what the Mad King did. He had full blown pyromania and pyrophilia. It may be because he didn't have dragons, but he's also described as enjoying a good burning execution that takes as long as possible to truly torture the accused. While no one likes to be burned alive, Dany actually does it in about as humane a way as it can possibly be done.
Are we supposed to assume that Bronn tackled Jaime off the horse, grabbed him underwater, and swam with one hand while dragging Jaime with the other a few hundred yards before coming up for air?
of all the unrealistic things in GOT right now - dragons, white walkers, a continuously fat Sam - that's the part you chose not to suspend belief for?
I expected this comment. But yes, I've accepted the fantasy aspect of the show with the dragons and the giants and the white walkers and the magic. But I thought the humans still needed oxygen.
Not only everything the two of you said, when they get out of the river the battle is nowhere near them, despite them being in the middle of it moments before. Either Bronn is a very strong swimmer (who was able to rescue both himself and Jaime who were both in full armor and sinking like stones) that would put Michael Phelps to shame or the river they fell into was exceedingly wide...like miles wide...allowing them to freely walk back to King's Landing without being detected.
Not trying to express outrage, but that popped into my head while watching and it not making any sense.
you said it yourself.. "when they got out of the river..."
The Blackwater is a pretty significant river, described as deep and swift in the books, with currents that are wicked and treacherous. all Bronn has to do is grab Jaime and get to the surface - the river's current would do all the work of getting them away form the scene of the battle.
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Blackwater_Rush
Lol fat sam
Seems far fetched, but it was in a river, so we have no idea how strong the current is. Swimming with a strong current will take you a long way before you get back to the surface.
And along that line, Jaime was riding the horse in ankle deep water, how the hell did Bronn tackle him into the Mariana Trench??
Should've been targeting. Bronn should've been suspended for the first half of last night's episode.
It was bad writing. To have an "almost" fake out Jamie death cliff-hangover, just to have it immediately resolved in the next scene we see, hundreds of yards away from the battle, surging out of the water as if, to suggest that they had been underwater the whole time, while assuming that drogon didnt see them jumping off the horses was bad writing, just to set up the plot for the rest of the episode. They shouldnt have added the ending to last week's episode in the first place if they werent going to either: Kill jamie or bronn, immediately have a tyrion-jamie confrontation, or have jamie and bronn suffer the fate of the rest of the lannister and tarley armies.
GRRM would never do that.
well, he better hurry the phuck up and write it better
I don't think it was intended to be a fake out cliff hanger. I don't think they wanted you to think he was dead. I never thought he was dead. This is far from that bullshit The Walking Dead pulled.
This was my thought. I think the better ending scene would have been to show Jaime sinking, then Bronn swim and get him. Bronn resurfaces holding a passed out Jaime. He looks around, and sees nothing but a fire storm and chaos. Then he swims away without being noticed. They could include the scene where Bronn brings Jaime to shore, or left it for this episode.
Does all that really need to be shown though? I mean, yeah it showed Jaime sinking into depths beyond the depth it looked like... Perhaps this was metaphorical to how Jaime felt... Or maybe it was just to show a cool visual effects scene of Jaime sinking. I mean its a fantasy drama afterall why such dislike? I don't need more than what they showed to put everything you mention together on my own. Did it happen EXACTLY like you say? Who knows but then who cares, it's an insignificant detail on the whole right?
How is a main character, wearing 60 pounds of body armor, sinking to the bottom of a 20 foot + body of water, with one hand, at the end of an episode not a cliff hanger?
if we can praise the great, we can critique the not so great. With no other explanation offered in a show that has usually really prided itself on the SMALLEST of details, it was pretty bad.
I am not disagreeing with what you are saying but why does it matter if it's a cliff hanger? Why does that make it bad for you? I have no issue with criticism. Just wondering why the concept of a cliff hanger is a bad thing. Because you feel they are too cheesy or something larger?
From a production point of view, Hemmingwaying that transition from the above down to essential 2 scenes and a visual effect saved on week(s) of filming and all the costs associated with that. And you get the same result that the viewer is now moved along the storyline.
And the show goes by... Fast... There are a lot of things that are not given full detail. I think the show prides itself on subtle details more than the smallest details. Linkages to many things that become "oh wow" moments once discovered. Though they have done great job on small details as well.
I think the blatant cliff hanger is a little cheesy/lazy/frustrating. IMO, a cliff hanger is a tool used to force audiences to return. It was necessary in Season 1, when Bran was pushed out of the tower, and the episode fades to black as he's falling. I just think it was unnecessary and added zero value here. Everyone was returning the following week, no matter what.
It was probably written and filmed that way, and for run-time purposes got cut out
The leaked script had a final scene where Jaime and Bronn were swimming just under the surface (Jaime helped by Bronn), and they looked down and saw many Lannister soldiers, weighed down to the bottom by their armor and holding their arms up to be rescued. Would've been a powerful scene.
Dragons, snow zombies, people who see through animals, bringing people back to life and that's the issue you have with suspending reality? /s
That episode was travel galore davos was everywhere in 10 minutes it's speeding up like crazy of all the issues I thought would arise for jon, having to prove walkers are real never crossed my mind I don't get why they don't get a prisoner, take him like couple hundred yards north of the wall, kill him and let him come back but put him in a nice sturdy cage and bam got your walker. Instead they go and tickle the bulls balls by trying to nab a single walker from the army miles away from the wall
I thought he'd hitch a ride on one of the dragons to Eastwatch now that he'd bonded with Drogon so that would've made some sense as far as him getting across Westeros in no time at all.
He oughta take dany with her on drogon and show her and could be the original mile high club member at the same time!
The Night King needs to raise the dead for a wight to be made. Can't just kill someone north of the wall.
I guess they made the wight choice
I thought that but didn't that one guy die in castle black back in season one or two that tried to kill mormont just come back without the king?
he was raised by the Night King before and the idea is basically that the Night King warged into it keeping it "dead" until it was taken by the Night's Watch back to Castle Black. Like a trojan horse.
I can't remember if this just happened in the books, but Jon had the Watch put some bodies in the ice cells under the wall that were found not yet animated after encounters with the walkers too. Maybe that plan didn't pan out (or it never happened in the show), but you would think they'd at least check before risking their lives as you said.
They burned those bodies after the one 'escaped' and attacked Mormont & Jon. I don't remember if it was clear that those bodies had been from encounters with walkers or not, if I remember correctly Jon's first ranging brought back the discovered bodies of the dead. They were definitely Night's Watch rangers that died north of the wall. That was way back before Mormont took the Night's Watch north of the wall and all of the events at Craster's.
I'm wondering how Sam is going to react to hearing that his Dad (douche) and Dickon (tee hee) were burned alive by a dragon. He hated his father, but Dickon was good to him. Something tells me that Jon is not going to be happy to hear it, especially when he hears it from Sam first (just my prediction)
general predictions:
1) Arya and Sansa are setting Littlefinger up, even though he believes he has the upper hand. Not sure if this will mean the death of him just yet though. he may escape still... but this will be spoken to him: "when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives" when they catch him up. Sansa was taught by the best after all.
2) Gendry and Arya (EDIT: maybe Sansa) become a thing. though the trailer for Episode 6 clearly shows the Hound using Gendry's war hammer so....
3) The Hound brings the Wight to King's Landing and lands himself in the fighting pits where we finally get Cleganbowl. This is also where Cersei finally kills Ellaria, or tries to...
4) A dragon saves Jon and company from certain death outside of East Watch... stopping the march of the Night King for now, which prompts the Night King to raise an ice dragon.
5) Sam will have returned home on his way back from Oldtowne, learns his father and brothers fate. sends raven to Jon, who replies and tells him to stay and raise an army.
6) Cersei will agree to armistice buying time for the Golden Company to arrive, which will be end of this season whereby they will deal a significant blow to Dany and Jon who "trusted" that she would also focus on the white walkers, thus driving Jaime fully away.
Or as we used to call them, "arts and farts and crafts"
Any reference to one of the greatest pieces of film ever made always gets a leg from me.
Feeling is mutual.
My wife just doesn't get how I can watch that movie and crack up every. single. time.
My wife gets it, she loves it as much as I do, somehow. We just finished watching 10 Years Later last night, good follow up to the first day of camp
if even two of the points happen, i'd be one hell of a happy camper
Just the thought of an ice dragon gives me a tingling feeling in my body...
The Golden Company has already pledged to Dany in the books, would they change that much in show?
Given that they are completely obliterating the associated Jon Connington/Young Griff storyline in the show, yes, I think that's entirely possible.
Understand the point but Tychos (sp) from the Iron Bank basically offered them to Cersei last episode so...
But this goes back to what i said before about them Irish Bravehearting in the middle of battle where Griff/young Griff come in to play or possibly her ex lover Daario.
Any other large mercenary armies out there to hire?
Where does this theory an ice dragon exist come from?
One of Old Nan's tales and general lore mentioned in the books. Since Old Nan's stories have more truth to them than people thought, there's an idea that ice dragons might exist/could be created by the Night King by killing and then resurrecting one of Danaerys's dragons.
This.
The other theory is that there is an old dragon buried in the wall which is where it gets its magical properties from. And the Night King will raise it. But if that were true why wouldn't he be doing it already? He doesn't strike me as one that would leave such a weapon there or maybe he needs to be south of the wall to get it.
Perhaps because of the spells woven into the foundation of the Wall. If there's an ice dragon in it, maybe it's shrouded in protection such that it can only be awakened when the Night King comes, to fight him. If, however, the Night King touches/tears down/crosses/corrupts the Wall (*coughcough*Bran crossing the Wall after being marked*coughcough*), maybe he can counteract the magic that would otherwise prevent him from doing it.
Also a solid prediction.
I have an idea for how Daenerys can "recapture" her dragon: Euron Greyjoy's magic horn that can bind dragons to the user's will. It burns and kills the user, but she can't be burnt! The dragon may still be dead, but would be hers again.
Deleted
I like Fernley's number 4 suggestion that a dragon will save Jon. Just don't see him getting away any other way when they go north without horses and aren't close enough to the water to get away on boats this time.
The season 7 trailer showed someone riding off on a horse, presumably fleeing the battle we're going to see this week. The only person with a horse north of the Wall that is likely willing to help that crew is Benjen, so my prediction is that Dany's dragons stay south and a Stark comes to Jon's aid to rescue any survivors of the wight battle.
Or maybe Bran wargs a wild horse and helps, but I like the Benjen idea better. A little less deus ex machina, since Benjen already said he'd fight for the living as long as he could.
Theres also a scene in the promo for next week of the NK walking past a general looking on, that almost looks like he's letting jon leave because they always seem to let a person go.
super hyped
I think that a dragon(s) is going to show up and save the day but jon will end up doing something stupid and separated from the group. enter benjen to sacrifice himself for jon.
That's a solid prediction.
Admittedly the reason I said that is because in the trailer for next week their is a scene with Jon cutting down a wight while the rest of the NK army has stopped in the distance. And mixed into the background are some fairly sizable fires. Now i know Beric has a flaming sword but just not sure how that is gonna start that size of fire. Unless the red priest has some powerrful fire magic, like fireballs, to use.
I agree with Guitarman that Benjen is gonna make an appearance and Jon rides off on his horse. But we know the Hound survives because he is seen in the Season trailer down in Kings Landing.
So just piecing together visual clues and making some guesses.
For those who are super duper impatient: I got your link right here. It's missed the mark once or twice, but it's pretty accurate for what's about to happen... I started using it for episode 4 and it has been extremely accurate thus far.
For those who don't like spoilers, I am warning you now, don't click this link.
https://green-chili.blogspot.ca/2017/03/got-season-7-episode-guide.html?m=1
Cheers!
pretty much. Birthdays and Christmas are always pretty anticlimatic in my home too, lol
I love the concept that now we have 7 men that have either literally died, should have died, or have forsaken previous oaths coming together to do what's necessary for everyone else living.
"We are all on the same side, we're still breathing"
So what's the over/under on the number of survivors from that group, after next week's episode? 3 deaths?
If Tormund kicks it before he gets to hook up with 'the big woman,' I'm going to be real pissed
So will he.
I think Jon, Jorah, and the Hound survive. Gendry is a wild card but might make it (seems pointless to bring him back for just one episode). Beric and Thoros are at the end of their storylines. I think Tormund is a goner because he's a fan favorite and GoT loves to make us suffer, and the writing was on the wall when they sent him to...the Wall (showing he is somewhat of an accessory at this point who has outlived his usefulness as a central character). He's going to go out in an epic way, I'm sure of that.
They could've brought Gendry back only to kill him and close the loop in that storyline, maybe making his death have a larger meaning to Jon or influence the show somehow.
ARE WE ALL WATCHING THE SAME SHOW? Nobody is ever safe is RULE NUMBER ONE
Gendry def makes it. Pretty sure he's going to be the one in charge of weaponizing the dragon glass.
see, i speculated that was the reason he was brought back, but with the emphasis on the war hammer and his declaration of his bastard boratheon status, I'm almost thinking his path is a little different.
does it really take a blacksmith to weaponize it? basically any shard will do right?
Gotta shape the blade. Balance the weapon and put a proper handle and hand guard on it.
It takes a good weapon maker to make a good weapon.
Makes sense, but I don't think its a specialized skill set for gendry
Question. Did Jon even bring any dragon glass back with him for them to weaponize it before the headed out to capture a wight!? If not that seems like poor planning on his part.
I think, once Dany agreed to let him have it, it's safe to assume he did. A bunch of dudes lugging rocks around just doesn't make for good tv
They showed a close-up of them putting a heavy crate into their boat as they left. I think we are to assume that it contains the dragonglass.
well... sure. I suppose but this is obsidian which is not altogether that strong. It's merit is more in the mystical element of fire inside of it over its functional use of a weapon against steel. So yes if you want to make functional weapons I agree, but my point is that I don't believe it needs to be in the shape of a weapon to actually be effective. Any shard of any shape could do the trick.
this is the spear head that Sam found. Yeah it was shaped into a spear head, but again not hard to do with obsidian. Sam used it nonetheless sans spear, so in theory a lot of roughly made daggers, arrow heads and spear heads would be as effective as a mastercrafted item of like kind.
Also relevant: Gendry apprenticed with Tohbo Mott, who re-forged Ice into Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail. So while he may not have known how to forge Valyrian steel, he did know how to work with it. Combine that knowledge with everything that Sam is learning, and if Sam, Gendry, and Jon's dragonglass loot come together...
This is the most important piece of information. Gendry is the closest thing we have to someone who can work with Valyrian steel, which ultimately is a better option than just stabbing at white walkers with obsidian pieces.
And, since Gendry is Robert Baratheon's bastard son, and the Baratheon line arose from the Targaryens, there's gotta be some mystical blood magic stuff that can round out the equation.
Here's my question can valyrian steel be melted down and diluted to make more weapons than just one and still work or does it need to be pure valyrian steel?
Did you miss the whole Ice (Valyrian steel that Ned Stark had to start the series) being melted into widow's wail and oathkeeper part?
Ice was a gigantic greatsword, and was melted down and reforged into 2 regular sized longswords - Joffery/Tommen/Jaime's Widow's Wail and Jaime/Brienne's Oathkeeper. No new material was added, aside from new hilts/guards.
He's not saying to just melt one 100% Valyrian Steel sword and to make multiple, smaller 100% Valyrian Steel swords like we saw when they made Ice into Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper. He is asking if the Valyrian Steel from the melted sword can be mixed with other metal so you go from having 1 sword that is 100% Valyrian Steel and make 10 swords that are 10% Valyrian steel. Would doing so ruin its "magical" properties?
Whoops. My bad. However I think logic would dictate that the answer is no.
No biggie just an honest thought I had no possible real explanations are to be found but thought it might be a way to help arm everyone
My personal theory is that every sword in the iron throne is "Valerian Steel" since it was melted together by a dragon. Would be symbolic to rip that fucker apart to fight the greater evil.
No wonder Gandalf's sword was so powerful...
I think the answer is no. This might have nothing to do with it, but when Ice was reforged they tried to make the blades red and the valyrian steel wouldn't take the color, causing the rippled effect. If the color won't penetrate it, I would think you would also have a hard time creating an alloy to water down the valyrian steel content?
Yes exactly. Agree with you both about Gendry and Valyrian steel being more important. But unless Sam has the ancient way to turn dragonglass and normal steel into Valyrian steel (which he may have) then just using obsidian is not going to require master blacksmiths or really blacksmiths at all.
Yeah, I think that's the "secret" (that a lot of people have guessed): steel + obsidian = Valyrian steel, but it has to be melted by dragon fire. The books (and show, I believe) have mentioned that dragon fire can melt castles (stone) and after all, obsidian is stone, so I think that's been a low-key hint all along.
Yes exactly. This is where Gendry will come into play, not working with obsidian alone.
I thought obsidian is closer to glass than stone
What am I, a geologist?
Yeah, it's a volcanic glass, but I still think the show/story are hinting at this, since it's found in veins in the rock caves below Dragonstone.
You're a PhD candidate or something, aren't you?
Professor of Biochemistry. I don't know rocks. Or glass. Or whatever.
(FWIW I was just poking fun at myself)
*Raises Hand: Professor Can the bio chemical makeup of dragonstone tell us anything about its properties?
There's really nothing "bio" about it - turns out it's primarily silica (SiO2) so inorganic. It's like glass, so probably...it cuts stuff?
this has been my response to every single post in this thread...
Wow! Are you at Tech? My daughter is a rising senior in Biochemistry at Tech. (Well that's one of her majors, the other is Nanoscience)
Yes, I am!
your daughter is double majoring in biochem and nanoscience and I'm over here like
The only one I would bet money on is Beric. Mild Spoiler - by the end of book 5 he is already dead dead, no coming back, so I can see him going out in a badass way with his flaming sword.
Thoros I think goes too, although I can see some possibility he sticks around to eventually come face to face with Melisandre again, maybe for some type of reveal about the Lord of Light
To be fair, at that point of book 5 the Hound is also thought to be dead dead and out of the story. So I'm not sure we can really assume the books have any bearing on characters that have outlived them in the show.
Ehh, Beric is definitely dead, stated explicitly. There are several hints that imply The Hound is still alive at this point in the books.
And in some ways the show already made the connection with the episode of him going non-violent.
I agree that he tried to leave all the violence behind him and that he may still be alive, but I just have trouble seeing someone dragging him back into all of it and only Brienne knows where he might be. But I think it would be super cool if these theories turn out true.
Thoros and Beric will die. As posted above, their story is at an end.
Jorah definitely dies. He will sacrifice himself to save Jon and say something like, "Promise me that you will take care of her," meaning Dany.
I wonder of the Hound faces his fear of fire and sacrifices himself, or freaks out and flees the big fire.
Thought you (fellow) nerds would appreciate this:
Game of Thrones: Robert's Rebellion & Battle of the Trident 283 AC
So what do we think Cersei's gonna do with Bronn now that he's performed the heinous act of setting up a meeting with two of his friends?
I forgot about this, but I'm glad you brought it up.
I hope nothing bad happens to Bronn, ever.
Nothing. He's saved Jaime enough that he'll go to bat for him, the meeting brought about an outcome that Cersei sees as a potential for a power play, and most importantly Lena Headey & Jermoe Flynn once dated and allegedly refuse to be in the same room.
She asked Jaime what he's going to do about Bronn immediately after they set up that potential power play, and then proceeded to threaten Jaime herself, so I don't think she's above doing something that hurts Jaime's feelings. And to the soured relationship point (as ridiculous as a 15 year celebrity grudge is), she didn't have to be in the same room as anyone the Mountain has killed for her and she blew up the Sept of Baelor from the other side of the city. So I don't think it's out of the question for her to act on her threats without any actual scene with Bronn
They used a body-double during her walk of shame and it was seamless. They "film" dragons, direwolves, wights, and White Walkers. I think that if they have to have a scene with the two of them in the same room, they could easily do it without them having to be in that room together at the same time. I mean, that is something people could do way back when motion picture cameras were first invented.
My Spoiler Theory - The Hound is definitely Azor Ahai "The Prince Who was Promised." No reason to connect him with the Brotherhood unless he had larger significance, he has a major redemption story arc, fear of fire and burning as a child (symbolic if it comes full circle), and the dude saw a very accurate vision of the Wights in the flames.
The prophecy says "the prince will be reborn in salt and smoke" which is a pretty good description of the Battle of Blackwater considering there was plenty of smoke (dragon-fire barrage) and salt (giant ocean). That battle is the turning point where the Hound abandoned his former self and started on his current path.
Next episode, Beric dies and gives his life for the Hound who in turn grabs that flaming sword and starts lopping off Wight Walker heads for the entire next season.
I thought it was confirmed that we haven't yet seen Lightbringer as the sword Stannis drew from the fire didn't radiate heat.
I think Beric's current sword will become Lightbringer when Beric sacrifices himself to save the Hound (Azor Ahai sacrificed his wife) to give Lightbringer it's power.
I like the Jaime as Azor Ahai theory. With the path their on it seems likely that Jaime will either have to kill (sacrifice) Cersei or shed any morality he has.
Now this would be awesome.
The Hound is a very complex character, and the show and the actor have portrayed him perfectly. If this was the endgame for his arc, wow.
It would similar to the hodor arc in I'd be stunned but not depressed after it was revealed
C L E G A N E B O W L - C O N F I R M E D
wights*
It seems like Light Bringer needs sacrifice to have true power. Maybe it will require the Hound to kill the Mountain.
Enjoyed this way too much
https://www.facebook.com/junkeedotcom/videos/1398471363598657/
With episode 6 being "accidentally" leaked by HBO Spain today, I guess I have to stay off social media until Sunday (a friend told me his Facebook already had spoilers). Please someone tell me this awesome thread is safe until Sunday!
ok... so my China equivalent of AppleTV had this week's episode.... and let me just say:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
(I know you won't do this, but I'll post it here for posterity)
If you see the episode early (leaked, pirated, or glitch by your provider), please don't spoil it. We do discuss the show right after it airs (as is common on TKP threads related to TV shows) so this thread is not intended to be spoiler-free, but please be considerate and not post any information about the episode in advance of airing. That would be a real spoiler.
100% this. Especially with this episode.
how long was the runtime?
Ok, this is the one answer I am gonna give, gonna be off the boards till you all watch.
Runtime is 1 hr, 6 mins.
I am re-watching it again right now.
That good, huh?
Looks like I'm going to have to make extra popcorn for this sunday night ! I'm getting stoked. :--)
Yeah, I was just asking so that I know exactly when to tune in to BALLERS
Ballers over thrones?? By any chance is this you?
Did someone say Pirates?
A Drink of Ice & Fire, calm my nerves tonight.
What an unreal episode
Shit just got real
Lots of deus ex machina in that episode, but damn...edge of your seat throughout.
Agreed. The build up to this episode and main events that take place made it dramatic but the execution was sloppy. Granted it would be challenging to figure out how to get necessary setup, but having the undead army wait for ice to freeze while Gendry ran back, sent a raven to Dragonstone, and Dany flew back up to them was extremely ridiculous.
There was some tricky editing there, but I was under the impression the team was on the run for a little while before the walkers caught up to them and surrounded them. They could have been on the run for upwards of a day before they were surrounded, and if you assume physics remains the same in Westeros where it still takes a couple days for the water to freeze thick enough to walk across (remember, it had to re-freeze thicker than it was originally), then there conceivably could have been upwards of 5-7 days between when Gendry was sent off and when the dragons showed up. The editing made it look like one continuous series of events, though.
seemed like to me that they ran at most a couple miles at to that island.. They basically ran straight down and out of the little canyon where they ambushed that White Walker & his merry band of wights. The Night King and his crew were there pretty fast. Mr. McScreechy was pretty loud, but sound can't carry all that far over mountains.
Also, it certainly seems like the Night King likes to take his damn time when it comes to finishing them off, just letting the lake slowly freeze... that or he knew Dany and her dragons would be coming to rescue them and was just hanging out waiting for a chance to kill one or more of them. The fact that the wights were moving to encircle the lake even before Jon & Co set up shop on that island jumped out at me as an odd tactic - unless they were planning on trapping them from the start.
My theory: Night King kept them there as bait to draw out the dragon's so he could kill one, raise it, and melt down the wall.
MRW that bear thing started attacking the group
For as awesome as the battle north of the Wall was, the scene of greatest tension for me was between Arya and Sansa. Arya is super dark now and I'm wondering how this plays out.
Talk about a mean little sister with a lethal edge ! Anyone ever think that if anything ever happens to Jon or Dany that she could take their face and fill in for them to keep things going.
Holy shit! What an episode! Also, Arya is creepy now and I love it.
So people have mentioned here that they think Arya will kill Littlefinger. What if she already has killed him and taken his face? What if the brief scene between Sansa and Littlefinger in tonight's episode, was actually Arya disguised as Littlefinger. The creepy Sansa and Arya scene where Sansa found the faces and Arya told her about them, I kinda feel like the GoT show runners wouldn't just throw that in there without having some significance. My theory of Arya wanting to disguise as Littlefinger is to find out Sansa's true motivations, and Littlefinger is really the only person Sansa talks to in confidentiality other than Jon I guess. Or maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions because I want to see Littlefinger dead since he's a douche and creepy af.
A character that humongous, I doubt they'd kill him off camera. And as cunning as he is, I'm not too totally sure that Arya, as badass as she is, will get the best of him.
Just because they kill him off camera doesn't mean they can't do a flashback where they show his horrible death right after Arya reveals herself.
No way she has killed him yet, because she still hasn't told him the "lone wolf dies, while the pack survives" talk. I really believe Arya and Sanse are playing him just like he plays everyone else. Arya's straight up badassery and specialty training is putting him off his game.
I don't think Sansa is playing anyone. There's not much reason for Arya to threaten Sansa in private like that if Sansa understands what's going on. Arya is definitely playing mind games though
of course Arya is playing mind games. that's the point. Littlefinger has never dealt with someone like Arya. Besides I don't buy Arya being so stupid as to believe she found this incriminating note in his chambers and regards Sansa as a threat at all. All she would have to do is tell Sansa where she found it because he told Sansa he had no idea how she got it.
He's getting played by two little girls he thought would be the easiest for him to manipulate.
So while watching the Alt Shift X video for the 7x05 as I always do, within the first ten minutes of the video being up, I accidentally scrolled down on accident with my hand grazing across the touch pad on my mac, and saw a few comments. Every single one of the comments was douchebags commenting "The night king kills Viserion with an ice spear!"
So that entire thing was ruined for me, I knew Dany was coming with the dragons, I knew Viserion was going to be killed by the Night King. I was crushed, ruined a part of an amazing episode for me. Luckily, enough other great stuff happened so that it wasn't totally ruined, but seriously, fuck people who go out of there way to post spoilers publicly to ruin things for people.
On a more episode based note.
I lifted both of my arms during the Jon and Dany scene at the end and they remained raised for the duration of that scene. Idc if they are related I'm so for all for a JonxDany pairing it's not even funny. When he called her his Queen I about damn fainted.
Also, I got kind of emotional during the Viserion death scene, even knowing it was coming. You may have caught this, but if you haven't you can see it with a rewatch of the clip, but when Drogon sees Viserion crashing towards the ground he lets out a roar and it impacted me way more than I thought watching a dragon watch his brother die would.
I saw someone RT a picture of the Night King with an ice spear, so I figured out most of it. That really ticked me off, especially since the use of the RT was totally unrelated to the show. People really just want to mess with others. With GoT leaks, it's really hard to use any social media or YouTube. There are a few video makers that I trust with regards to GoT since I know they don't post spoilers, but those comment sections upend that completely. Tough luck on the errant scroll.
Someone was commenting on random news articles on facebook this week with spoilers. Articles that had nothing to do with Game of Thrones - just some shit being a little shit.
Then there was an Instagram account that basically was posting the entire episode in clips and it showed up in my "Videos You Might Like" section.
About that whole scene. Boy did they make sure she made a lot of fuss about not being able to have kids. If only there was another Targ in the world to help her accomplish that.....
Oh, which brings me to another thing... Tyrion's whole obsession with her succession. Considering the leading theory, that does make for an interesting topic should something happen to D&J.
Reintroducing another bastard in Gendry could be an interesting twist on succession. The kid seems to have a lot of heart.
What's interesting is that as of right now there seems to be no ruler for:
The Stormlands, Dorne or The Reach.
Gendry could take the Stormlands
Samwell Tarly the Reach
Dorne... dunno... part of me still thinks Elaria makes it out of King's Landing with the help of the Hound
Also, I got kind of emotional during the Viserion death scene, even knowing it was coming. You may have caught this, but if you haven't you can see it with a rewatch of the clip, but when Drogon sees Viserion crashing towards the ground he lets out a roar and it impacted me way more than I thought watching a dragon watch his brother die would.
I caught that. Almost as heart wrenching as the cry Chewy let out when Han got a light saber through the chest!
Hope noone hasn't watched SWTFA yet.
Not my problem. They've had more than ample time.
Well alright then:
Snape kills Dumbledore
Harry is the last Horcrux
Frodo is too weak to destroy the ring, but that's cool cause Gollum bites off his finger to get it and falls into the heart of Mt. Doom
Bruce Willis is really a ghost
Vader is really Luke's father
Jarjar is instrumental in bringing the emperor to power.
Hokies come back to beat the Razorbacks
etc etc etc
son of a bitch i've made it through years of never watching Harry Potter until now. My wife finally convinced me to watch them and I've gotten all the way through the first six and now the horcrux spoiler haha.
It wasn't me :)
And Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze.
Stupid question. Who the hell died helping Jon? They didn't show his face when he fell and I can't place who it was. I must be forgetting someone because when I think of those that were still alive I can't seem to come up with who bought it.
They brought some widlings with them to cart their bags. That's who bear killed earlier and that's who died fighting on the ice island.
Thanks. They kind of made it seem like it was someone important. That's why I was racking my brain trying to figure out who it was. I didn't know if I was forgetting someone or it was one of the wildling throwaway characters.
At the end? That was Benjen. Other than that, the only deaths were Thoros and a bunch of wildling redshirts.
I know that was Benjen. I was talking about on the rock in the middle of the ice lake.
Also Thoros, the dude who has kept bringing Beric back to life
Yes, I know him too. I was talking about the guy that fell off the rock into the mob of wights after helping Jon.
You have to admit, though, "who died helping Jon?" is an awfully general question with a lot of answers :)
Fireman seemed to know who I was talking about.
my bad for being repetitive, responded from the comments tab and didn't see where GM had already mentioned Thoros
It was a red-shirt guy, essentially.
If you watch the behind the scenes (the 13 minute one on hbo.com, but you can find it on youtube), the stunt guy that was killed by the bear was the same one to fall into the group of walkers.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that by the end of the story we see the dragons, walkers, Children, and everything magic truly fade into history forever, leaving a world of somewhat lasting peace. No idea who will remain to rule it all though.
I have a feeling they'll 'convince' Cersei to side with them against the Wights/Walkers in the S7 finale, but she'll betray everyone next season while they think she's on their side
My theory is that Cersei will see how powerful the White Walkers are, and want that power for herself. So she'll betray mankind, cutting a deal to get turned into a White Walker in exchange for letting them through the wall or something like that. Then once she's got the ol' blue eyed, ice-skin going on she'll betray the Night King and kill him, and crown herself the Night Queen.
The whole Arya v. Sansa thing was super tense but irrelevant because Tormund is going to murder Sansa when he finds out she sent away Brienne
Wouldn't put it past him. That man is thirsty for Brienne.
The back and forth between him and The Hound about her was hilarious.
psssh... All this does is all but guarantee that Tormund shows up as well, setting the stage for Tormund-Brienne-Jamie awkwardness you didn't even realize you've been secretly wanting to see this whole time.
Awkwardness or potential bromance?
Or give her a present. Did Tormund go with Jon Snow and Dany to King's Landing? He was the one handling the walker, after all.
All that matters is that the Hound is heading back to Kings Landing.
CLEGANEBOWL!!!
Everyone always knew that the Night King was just a set up for the path to Cleganebowl.
Can we get a new thread for just he season finale and the offseason of GOT?
Agree. This one is getting to be massive.
You'll have to submit form 1807-D to Joe requesting forum topic creation. Along with said form you'll need a change.org petition with at least 300 signatures and a letter from your congressman stating why this is a need and not just a want. /s
Just made one.
agreed.
Got around to watching the episode last night, so I can finally click on this thread and stop being terrified by random tweets and YouTube comments.
Also, it was all the Hound's fault.