Game of Thrones Season 6 [Discussion of most-recently aired episodes]

[The Vortex Empire]

Except that the books are probably going to be long and drawn out. I cited that vox article because it cuts the unnecessary fat (Doran's arc, Arianne's Arc, Fake Aegon's Arc, and Victarion's arc were fucking pointless). AFFC and ADWD were needlessly bloated and poorly written, with actions that could have taken one chapter taking 5, no real action occurring other than "characters go someplace, have a think, and leave."

In that regards the show is inifinitely superior. It gets things wrongs but in some ways that's largely george's fault, introducing pointless characters rather than focusing on the endgame. The series could be wrapped up in SIX books if he really wanted it and hadn't needlessly made Fake Aegon

Asserting your opinion does not make it objectively true for everyone. Again, AFFC and ADWD are easily my favorite of the series, and I'm not alone.

[JLTucker]

Except that the books are probably going to be long and drawn out. I cited that vox article because it cuts the unnecessary fat (Doran's arc, Arianne's Arc, Fake Aegon's Arc, and Victarion's arc were fucking pointless). AFFC and ADWD were needlessly bloated and poorly written, with actions that could have taken one chapter taking 5, no real action occurring other than "characters go someplace, have a think, and leave."

In that regards the show is inifinitely superior. It gets things wrongs but in some ways that's largely george's fault, introducing pointless characters rather than focusing on the endgame. The series could be wrapped up in SIX books if he really wanted it and hadn't needlessly made Fake Aegon

Asserting your opinion does not make it objectively true for everyone.

Given the nature of the discussion (art), it's inferred that it's just his opinion.

Edit: I misread your post.

[Knife]

Cerci's victory is Pyrrhic. She has killed all the top people in King's Landing and decimated the government. Yes, she is Queen sitting on the throne but that throne is atop the smouldering ruins of what's left of the government apparatus of Westros. Everything south of King's Landing is lost to her and she should know it. The west is broke, she may not know that yet, but we know it from Twy's dialogue in season 4. The North is lost to her, though she may not know that yet. The east just joined in with the North, so she lost that. The Riverlands are in disarray and now the Frey's are in disarray. And she lost her last kid.

It's about as hollow a victory as can be possible.

[Iroscato]

Best episode they've ever done. I am in awe. I love this show. The 42 week winter is more unwelcome than ever. Holy fucking GAWD.

[Darth Yan]

Personally people I trust have found books 4 and 5 needlessly self indulgent, and they're not alone.

[The Vortex Empire]

Poorquentyn (Emmett Booth) puts my feelings more eloquently than I can, he and BryndenBFish have written on this a bunch.

Q

astroboxuniverse asked:

I agree with you that the last two are the best, but, why do you think so many people in the fandom dislike feast and dance?
A

Hiya! Always glad to find another Feast/Dance aficionado. We are growing in number and power daily. We will bury you.

Anywho, there are many reasons why so much of the fandom rejected the last two novels (or simply enjoyed them considerably less than the first three), some of which strike me as more valid than others. Cersei’s prominence in Feast was a real problem for those who can’t see her as anything but a superficial villain and/or a misogynistic caricature. The mean-spiritedness of Tyrion’s storyline put a lot of people off, as did the bodice-heaving tone of Dany’s relationship with Daario.

Above all, though, I think the major complaints were structural. Feast took it on the chin for leaving out so many characters, Dance was said to suffer from bloat and filler (I vehemently disagree), and many felt like both consisted largely of transitional, board-setting material. The second half of A Storm of Swords is IMO a tad overstuffed with Big Moments, and it’s immensely to GRRM’s credit that he realized the next stage of the story would have to focus on tracing the ripple effects. A Feast for Crows accordingly spends its opening chapters among those dealing with Storm’s body count: Tywin, Balon, Oberyn…I get that many thought this refractory period made Feast/Dance inherently lesser than the previous installments, but I prefer the exquisite worldbuilding and elegantly exhausted tone of the recent books to the punchy roller-coaster-ride-through-fireworks-display of Storm. The latter is more cleanly and immediately exciting, but IMO the former is more immersive, introspective, and interesting.

There is one particular criticism of A Dance with Dragons, however, which I think just completely misses the point: the idea that GRRM screwed us all over by leaving out the climaxes to the Winterfell and Meereen storylines. In both cases, there was indeed a battle left hanging; nicknamed the Battles of Ice and Fire by the author, they will reportedly kick off The Winds of Winter.

I think it’s worth noting that neither of these battles will actually be the climax to either plot. Stannis will still have to take Winterfell from the Boltons after felling the Freys, and the collapse of the anti-Dany coalition will still leave Barristan, Victarion, and the Shavepate staring each other down over a city ravaged by plague, starvation, dragonfire, and war from within and without. (In the end, the Shavepate wins. Like Littlefinger, he’s a cunning, ambitious, ruthless, ever-adapting, ever-betraying lesser noble…except Skahaz mo Kandaq lacks Petyr Baelish’s crippling blind spots, and so the Brazen Beasts will triumph where the mockingbird falters and falls.) So these battles are just the next verse in an ongoing song.

More importantly, I’d argue GRRM actually brings both these storylines to a head perfectly at the end of A Dance with Dragons, albeit in a fashion more existential than explosive.

In the North, the true climax is the Pink Letter, and what a letter it is! I remain in awe of the (thoroughly earned) audacity of this move: the endgame of the Northern half of Dance is a message whose authorship cannot be satisfyingly resolved, the content of which may have happened or partially happened or not happened at all, and yet for all its ambiguities, it immediately throws Jon’s arc into exquisitely sharp relief. As Adam Feldman at the Meereenese Blot has argued, the Pink Letter encapsulates for the Watch and the reader alike how far Jon has strayed from his vows: openly working on Stannis’ behalf, freeing Mance, arranging for him to make off with the new Lord of Winterfell’s bride, etc. How does Jon react? By shattering his vows without a hint of regret, declaring that he will lead the wildlings south in an invasion of the North. Remember, if you’re someone (say, Bowen Marsh) who lacks sympathy for Jon and doesn’t give a damn about Arya, it would appear that Jon has been the aggressor by sending Mance on his mission and that Ramsay is the rightfully aggrieved party. Now, from our perspective, Jon’s decision to abandon the fight against the Others (having decided to take the wildlings south while sending the core of the Watch to Hardhome, who exactly does he think will hold Castle Black?) in order to Slay a Monster as Heroes Do is sympathetic and relatable, as were the earlier decisions highlighted in the Letter. But that’s the foundation of great tragedy: good people (and Jon is a deeply, almost radically good person) making bad decisions for understandable reasons. That is what GRRM wanted to leave us with at the end of Dance, rather than fireworks. The Pink Letter draws our attention away from resolution and toward revelation; again, it’s an existential climax, not a situational one.

In the East, the true climax is the death of Quentyn Martell. Everyone who decried Quent’s story as tangential at best or insignificant at worst missed how thoroughly his chapters epitomized and integrated the tone, themes, settings, and style of A Dance with Dragons. It’s worth noting that we spend more time in Essos in Dance than we do in the rest of the series combined. In the wake of Dany’s anti-slavery crusade, everything is in flux: cultures, cities, armies, rulers, quests, hopes, dreams, fears, money, all in motion. Essos dangles on the edge. Again, though, what’s waiting for us at the end isn’t an orgasmic release of bloodlust, but an utterly unshakable image of the suffering and (perhaps even worse) entropy undergirding the whole damn thing:

After the girl was gone, the old knight peeled back the coverlet for one last look at Quentyn Martell’s face, or what remained of it. So much of the prince’s flesh had sloughed away that he could see the skull beneath. His eyes were pools of pus. He should have stayed in Dorne. He should have stayed a frog. Not all men are meant to dance with dragons.

Quentyn’s quest was doomed from the start, but that doesn’t mean his story is pointless. I invoke entropy because of the unmistakable sense throughout Feast/Dance that everything is slowly falling apart, that whole societies are coming apart at the seams metaphysically as well as politically. It ends not with a superficial bang, but with a devastating whimper. Quentyn learns he’s not the hero, and that’s the point of his arc: what it feels like to play the role of the hero when deep down you know not only that you can’t pull it off but that you never wanted to in the first place.

These climaxes follow each other directly: Quentyn and Jon’s final chapters stand side by side, a metaphysical bond forged in death from halfway across the planet. Those chapters, both among my very favorites in the series, collapse everything accomplished in the latest and greatest book in ASOIAF into the final thoughts of two young men caught between crushing despair and desperate hope, risking everything on a wild, foolish, beautiful gamble of the type that most fantasy stories would unthinkingly reward, and yet they both die for it. Like I’ve said, Dance is about failure, but not in a hectoring or nihilistic sense; GRRM is proud of his characters for taking their stands, yet unwilling to shield them from the consequences of doing so.

Q

Anonymous asked:

hi poorquentyn, do you mind sharing why Dance is you favourite book in the series? Specifically why you like it more than Feast? more interesting POVs? better writing? more interesting plot lines? Thank you very much for your asoiaf metas, i love visiting your page regularly to see what you've written
A

Hiya! I think Feast and Dance are equally (incredibly) well written, and the POVs are just as interesting (Cersei and Brienne and Arianne v. Jon and Theon and Quentyn is pretty close to a draw).

Cliché as this is, it honestly comes down to Big Moments. I was always amazed that people criticized Dance for its lack of such, as to my mind, there were just as many holy-shit moments in Dance as in Storm, but paced-out better.

As proof, my Holy Shit Moments in A Dance with Dragons:

Chapter 3: Drogon eats a kid

Chapter 5: Bran & Co. eat people

Chapter 7: Quent is introduced…after most of his party is killed

Chapter 8: “Fetch me a block.”

Chapter 13: The reintroduction of Theon, now Reek

Chapter 14: The introduction of the Children and the Bloodraven reveal

Chapter 19: The Aegon reveal

Chapter 25: JonCon has greyscale!

Chapter 30: Rickon’s on Unicorn Cannibal Island!

Chapter 32: Mance is alive!

Chapter 35: Every single thing about Bran’s last chapter

Chapter 38: FREY PIES

Chapter 43: Big Bucket Wull is worth quoting in full:

Ser Corliss Penny gave the clan chief an incredulous look. “Do you want to die, Wull?”

That seemed to amuse the northman. “I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter. Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.”

Chapter 47: Theon sees and talks to Bran in the heart tree

Chapter 50: The Alys/Sigorn wedding

Chapter 52: Theon and Jeyne depart Winterfell (and also Big Walder kills Little Walder)

Chapter 53: Dany and Drogon depart Meereen

Chapter 57: Victarion acquires a fire-arm

Chapter 59: Jon and Tormund bring the Free Folk peacefully through the Wall

Chapter 62: The Golden Company invades Westeros

Chapter 66: The Walk

Chapter 69: “Oh.”

Chapter 70: The Pink Letter and the assassination

Chapter 72: Every single thing about Dany’s last chapter

Chapter 73: The murderous return of Varys, missing throughout the Feastdance

It's of course absolutely fine if you don't like them, stuff like this is subjective, I just take issue with you saying it like you did a while ago "Season 5 has problems; but anyone saying Feast and Dance are great are kidding themselves" as if people who don't agree with your opinion on Feast/Dance are idiots and your opinion is fact.

I think the disagreement comes from different people looking for different things to enjoy in the books.

[Guardsman Bass]

That was a good episode, and I'll give the show this - it continues to make any and all predictions I make wrong.

1. It was a slow build-up to that destruction of Baelor's Sept, but all worth it for that conclusion and the great effects of it. About the only sour note is that they ended it with Gregorstein given orders to repeatedly rape the Septa over and over again. Just an excellent sequence for the show, and while it feels a bit weird to have Cersei's storyline this season end with a coronation and her looking smug on the Throne, I'll take it.

2. Riverrun was also pretty damn satisfying (although I think it will be better in the books, where there's hints that a bigger massacre will take please at Riverrun Red Wedding style and involving Lady Stoneheart). I hope that next season, we find that Arya did more than just kill the Freys (and Walder Frey) - she also set Edmure free. The show also teased that the Blackfish might be alive, with the whole "taken down by common foot soldiers?".

3. The only thing that left me cold was everything at Winterfell aside from Angry Davos. They're really going to drag out the whole thing with Littlefinger even more, with it still unresolved as to what's going to happen with him? Ugh. Kind of a bummer, too, that Jon is being praised as a conquering hero when his fuck-up nearly got them all killed - I guess that's going to just be one of Those Things we'll have to overlook. He and Sansa got over the whole "sorry I didn't tell you about my potential army" really quickly, too, although the look at the end between her and Littlefinger possibly told otherwise.

4. Dorne returns! And didn't suck! Although I suspect they brought that back so they could get some more performance out of the wonderful Diana Rigg.

5. Nice of them to finish off the whole "Tower of Joy" flashback, although it's a little strange to have it at the end of a season. Seems like something that should have come up earlier.

6. Fucking finally, Daenerys and her forces are headed west! It's all molding together! And since characters can pretty much teleport in this series, she could be there any time next season.

7. So what is Sam going to discover in Oldtown that was important enough not to change his storyline of going there from the books? Hmm.

[Abacus]

In response to Guardsman Bass:

1) I didn't get the feeling that Cersei was smug. I think she outgrew "smug" a while back. I think there is this grimness now to her, more than anything. She's fully embraced the prophecy that she received from the witch. She showed that a few episodes back, when she admitted as such to Jamie. I'm looking forward to the completion of the prophecy.

2) Agreed.

3) I do think it was strange that Jon was declared the "White Wolf" and the "King in the North", but in a way it makes sense. Since we can now confirm that R + L = J, he needs to have titles to back him up when he meets Queen Daenerys. Since they'll both be royalty, they'll meet as equals. Dany casting aside her lover sets this up rather succinctly.

4) I still hate the way the Sand Snakes have been handled and the fact that they murdered Prince Doran -- the one man who should have been organizing things with Varys. It would have been great to see the self-righteous anger that Sand Snakes have been spouting about Oberyn to be swallowed like a pill when Doran would reveal that he has in fact been plotting the downfall of the Lannisters for longer than most of them have been alive.

5) Agreed that it was nice to see, but I understand why they waited. They needed it to be at the end, so it can help further prime the next season.

6) That last shot of the fleet and dragons flying over with Dany at the front of her ship...oh boy, it sent shivers down my spine it was so awesome.

7) Oldtown was awesome! I'm so glad that they had the great light house, reminiscent of Alexandria. And dear gods that library! I MUST HAVE IT! GIVE IT TO ME!

----------------

Otherwise, I'm happy with the season over all. It was nice to see Coldhands/Benjen again and confirmation in words about the nature of the Wall (it's magic); which makes for some interesting times ahead since Bran still has the mark of the Night King upon him. If he goes through the wall...is this going to bring it crashing down?

Also, at that last shot of Littlefinger, I could just hear him mentally sighing: *sigh* "Northerners."

[Abacus]

Oh, and I was far more hoping to see Sansa getting made 'Queen in the North'.

[FaxModem1]

So, thoughts:

Poor Loras. Proof that the theocracy were not nice guys, and Cersei probably did Westeros a favor by removing the world of their dogma and zealotry. Goodbye Tommen, you were misguided, but I always did like you. Also, whoever called it on the Wildfyre, kudos.

Now, Grand Maester Pycelle has been eliminated, but here's my questions, just how conditioned were these kids to become killers? How is a new Grand Maester chosen?

The citadel is awesome. I want to live there. In fact, in the Survive 5 years in Westeros thread, right hereand I see I'm utterly right. I'd be more than willing to spend five years in that place, let alone a lifetime.

Let's just look at that scene again, shall we:

link



Now, what all would be required to build a place like that? Would there be magic involved, or this within the realm of medieval architecture? Sidenote, what are the chains for on the bookshelves?

Moving on, I'm unclear on Sansa, is she immune to Littlefinger's charms now that she's made peace with Jon, or is she pissed that she isn't queen of the North?

And in Essos, Dany finally, finally, FINALLY, leaves Essos for Westeros. I'm very curious to see where she lands to start her campaign.

Last note, anyone else think, with Cersei killing off all of her extended family except for Jaime, that Jaime will eventually become the Queenslayer?

[Imperial Overlord]

The kids weren't conditioned, they were paid. Think of how nasty it is being an orphan street kid in a crapsack medieval world. Varys used to be their patron, but he's gone now. They're killing for their boss just like any other street gang.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I think he's considering how nice a ring Queenslayer has to it...

Oh, more teleporting characters. That's neat.

When Arya cut Walder Frey's throat I commented to my wife, "Damn that felt good." Later I said an alternate title for the episode should be "Walder Frey Must Die" because Arya went total Eric Cartman on his ass for the first half of her revenge plan.

I think Sansa is being more on the look-out for Littlefucker's manipulations at this point, more than being immune to them.

[Agent Fisher]

So... Can we just... Can we just put Lyanna Mormont in charge? Of like, everything?


R+L=J! THE WHITE WOLF! THE KING IN THE NORTH!


Oh... and yeah, Cersei, the Mad Queen. Wow.

[Crazedwraith]

Did the show confirm R+L=J?!

[The Grim Squeaker]

Dumbass question: How did Tommen die?

I saw the scene of him being alive (and not killed by Gregorstein, against a number of predictions), then the scene with his body and Cersei then a cutaway. How did he die? (I missed it somehow).

[The Grim Squeaker]

Did the show confirm R+L=J?!

Pretty much.
(Technically, they didn't say it. They just showed Lianna giving birth, whispering to Ned "Promise me", and a direct pan from the baby's face to Jonn's).

[Agent Fisher]

Dumbass question: How did Tommen die?

I saw the scene of him being alive (and not killed by Gregorstein, against a number of predictions), then the scene with his body and Cersei then a cutaway. How did he die? (I missed it somehow).

he was staring out at the smoking ruins of the Sept, stepped off camera to set his crown aside and then just walked right out the window.

[ArmorPierce]

There's certainly going to be conflict between Jon and Sansa. She felt some type of way about all the northern lords throwing their support behind Jon rather than her and Little Finger has planted seeds into her mind. We are going to have to see how this plays out, but I am suspecting that she's going to do something silly.

[Vympel]

There's certainly going to be conflict between Jon and Sansa. She felt some type of way about all the northern lords throwing their support behind Jon rather than her and Little Finger has planted seeds into her mind. We are going to have to see how this plays out, but I am suspecting that she's going to do something silly.

That's not I read it - IMO she's thinking about how to deal with Littlefinger. She doesn't trust him. She trusts Jon. She's happy that's he's declared King In Da Norf.

EDIT: it appears from the GOT youtube channel and cast interviews that your interpretation is correct:

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

Anyway - wow, that finale kicked so much ass. It was one of those episodes that was so good a list of things to talk about would just be 'I thought x was awesome, I thought y was awesome' and nothing much would be said apart from that, so I'll keep it short:

- I loved that Lord Glover was at Winterfell. Cerwyn and Manderly too. This entire scene was fantastic, and I'm glad my fears that they'd leave the lords who refused to answer the call as a hanging thread (perhaps never to be picked up) were totally baseless. Great scene.
- I was kind of hoping they'd leave Missandei back in Meereen too. Like, what's the point of her anymore? Speaking to the dothraki, I guess;
- Davos knocked it out of the park, again. Heart of the show.
- Cersei's scene with Septa Unella was wonderful. The show has finally reached the point where Cersei is a Mad Queen, and truly vile, with all redeeming qualities gone.
- Very sad to see the majority of the Tyrells go. I have no idea who is supposed to rule Highgarden once Lady Olenna is gone, but then, Storm's End has been without a lord for several seasons and no one has said anything. I get unreasonably anxious about these issues.
- Olenna made it tolerable, but Dorne continues to be a sour note. Why was it necessary to have these loathsome, bloodthirsty, irrational murderers in place in Dorne? Why was Prince Doran's most famous line fobbed off to fucking Ellaria Sand? I don't understand what the show is doing on this point. Associating Dany with these lunatics? Is the audience meant to be happy with this alliance? If it was an alliance with Doran, we'd all be fistpumping. Maybe the show has something planned in that regard. Justice for Doran and his murdered son! Justice for poor Myrcella!
- Jon and Sansa's interaction was sweet. Are they going the ship route? Or is Jon and Dany going to be a thing wrt marriage alliances? Hard to say.
- Awesome final shot. I can't believe its finally happening. There were Targaryen, Martell and Tyrell ships in that fleet.
- Jaime throwing shade on Walder. I'm hoping this is another indication of Jaime's arrested character development being finally accelerated, especially with him coming home to Mad Queen Cersei - i.e. that he's being lumped in the same category as goddamn Walder Frey.
- Surely everyone now is going to get that R+L=J, right?
- Edmure is still in the dungeous of the Twins. Hope he isn't left rotting there with that point unresolved (yes, I always want to see more Tobias Menzies).

[Simon_Jester]

- I was kind of hoping they'd leave Missandei back in Meereen too. Like, what's the point of her anymore? Speaking to the dothraki, I guess...

Having a (or another) loyal and trustworthy person at Daenerys' side while she navigates Westeros, which is for her an utterly unfamiliar strategic and political landscape?

- Very sad to see the majority of the Tyrells go. I have no idea who is supposed to rule Highgarden once Lady Olenna is gone, but then, Storm's End has been without a lord for several seasons and no one has said anything. I get unreasonably anxious about these issues.

In the book the Tyrells have more heirs, the real heir to Mace Tyrell never even shows up and is mentioned only in passing by others as far as I can recall... but I gather they left him out.

[Darth Yan]

The issues I heard with books 4 and 5 is partially that some of the characters weren't needed; Victarion obviously will give Dany the ships she needs; problem was you could have had Asha do the same damn thing and it doesn't waste time on another viewpoint. Also, by introducing new threads the ones that were established grind to a halt.

Hardholme was awesome because other than fist the walkers aren't there. In the show they're there. We see them enough to know shit's going to get real, and hardholme shows their power.

Doran being added, as well as Fake Aegon, felt like adding too many new characters when we SHOULD be wrapping things up. You don't introduce a whole armada of new characters in the second half. You wrap up the shit that was established in the first half. If George had taken the important things from Feast and Dance, trimmed the fat, and had it occur less dragged out we'd have had the same story in less time and one book. Then we could have Winds and Dream. It just feels self indulgent.

[Guardsman Bass]

n the book the Tyrells have more heirs, the real heir to Mace Tyrell never even shows up and is mentioned only in passing by others as far as I can recall... but I gather they left him out.

Yep, and they also have a bunch of cousins that have the Tyrell name but are out of the typical line of succession. Same goes for the other Houses Major, except the Starks and the Baratheons.

I loved that Lord Glover was at Winterfell. Cerwyn and Manderly too. This entire scene was fantastic, and I'm glad my fears that they'd leave the lords who refused to answer the call as a hanging thread (perhaps never to be picked up) were totally baseless. Great scene.

It's a good scene, but it just feels so unearned for Jon - he's being acclaimed despite his rather disastrous leadership in the Battle of the Bastards. Only rationale I can think of is that said Houses Minor weren't actually there, and are getting a version of the story in which Jon is a hero.

@ Darth Yan

Yes, we've read you whining multiple times about how annoying it is that fAegon got introduced late, how there's new characters introduced later on, etc, etc ad nauseum. I'll continue to insist that I liked the Dornish storyline, liked the fAegon thing and Tyrion's journey east, and so forth. It didn't feel wasteful to me at all.

In fact, the only time I felt annoyed in ADWD was with Daenerys' chapters, and I feel like that's part of the point - you're supposed to be annoyed with her for procrastinating on hard decisions, for putting off heading west to Westeros, for being unwilling to either leave or deal harshly with the Masters.

[Elfdart]

There's certainly going to be conflict between Jon and Sansa. She felt some type of way about all the northern lords throwing their support behind Jon rather than her and Little Finger has planted seeds into her mind. We are going to have to see how this plays out, but I am suspecting that she's going to do something silly.

I got the impression that Sansa was on board with Jon being King of the North because it effectively kneecaps the Pimp, especially when it wasn't just Northerners and Wildlings, but Vale knights declaring for Jon. Short of finding a few Vale knights loyal to him, abducting Sansa, and running like hell back to the Aerie, there's nothing left for the Pimp to do. Anywhere else he sets foot, he's a dead man.

Anyway, who can argue with Lady Mormont?

[streetad]

As far as an outsider is concerned, it probably looks like Jon used himself as bait in a trap to lure Ramsay's army out of their fortifications so the Vale knights could destroy them.

Tactical acumen AND great physical courage.

Otherwise you'd have to believe that he marched to attack Winterfell with a rabble of undisciplined wildlings and a handful of troops from minor Northern houses, and was only saved by an unlikely rescue from a third force he knew nothing about...

[ArmorPierce]

n the book the Tyrells have more heirs, the real heir to Mace Tyrell never even shows up and is mentioned only in passing by others as far as I can recall... but I gather they left him out.

Yep, and they also have a bunch of cousins that have the Tyrell name but are out of the typical line of succession. Same goes for the other Houses Major, except the Starks and the Baratheons.

I loved that Lord Glover was at Winterfell. Cerwyn and Manderly too. This entire scene was fantastic, and I'm glad my fears that they'd leave the lords who refused to answer the call as a hanging thread (perhaps never to be picked up) were totally baseless. Great scene.

It's a good scene, but it just feels so unearned for Jon - he's being acclaimed despite his rather disastrous leadership in the Battle of the Bastards. Only rationale I can think of is that said Houses Minor weren't actually there, and are getting a version of the story in which Jon is a hero.

I agree, I have a feeling that this is going to be handled differently in the books. The show handled it this way to increase the feeling of suspense about Jon going up against much greater odds and to make it appear as if his loss is inevitable... but it didn't make sense from a a realistic viewpoint.

@ Darth Yan

Yes, we've read you whining multiple times about how annoying it is that fAegon got introduced late, how there's new characters introduced later on, etc, etc ad nauseum. I'll continue to insist that I liked the Dornish storyline, liked the fAegon thing and Tyrion's journey east, and so forth. It didn't feel wasteful to me at all.

In fact, the only time I felt annoyed in ADWD was with Daenerys' chapters, and I feel like that's part of the point - you're supposed to be annoyed with her for procrastinating on hard decisions, for putting off heading west to Westeros, for being unwilling to either leave or deal harshly with the Masters.

I disagree with the assertion that we were supposed to be mad at Daenerys' for not dealing with the Masters harshly. Throughout her time there she wished to deal with the Masters far more harshly and had to be reined in and advised against it by her consults... all the way to the very end where she was inclined to raze the cities to the ground.