Game of Thrones season seven trailer.

[Solauren]

You know, who says there were any horses available for them to take North of the wall?

Think about it:
The Night's Watch Rangers...
.. take their horses north of the wall, and then run into the Army of the Dead.
.. The survivors lose the rest when Caster's Keep goes to hell.
.. The Night's watch probably doesn't have a lot of horses left.
.. it's possible the survivors of the Battle at the First of the First men reported that their horses panicked at the first smell/sign of the dead and ran.
(That would make taking horses to find them rather stupid). I will be the first to admit, that without proof of this, it's entirely speculation on my part. After all, Benjin Stark's horse didn't panic. Then again, Benjin's horse could also be dead.

The North...
.. Raises an army in rebellion. That would strip alot of usable horses from the lands.
.. loses horses via normal military engagements
.. loses a big chunk of them as a result of the Red Wedding.
.. loses even more as a result of the Battle of the Bastards
.. probably doesn't have a lot of horses left that are trained for riding. Any that are left will be needed to survive the winter. (horsemeat is still meat)

The Vale
.. didn't bring all their forces to the Battle of the Bastards (always leave a defense force)
.. most probably went home, with some staying behind to protect Sansa and Winterfell
.. is probably annoy Jon went to talk to the Dany.

The Dothraki
.. don't know Jon
.. probably wouldn't want him burrowing one of their horses
.. need them for their service to Dany.
.. their horses are uses to riding in warm grasslands. I doubt any of them would be suitable for north of the wall.

Dany
.. probably thought Jon had horses, so didn't offer them.

Jon
.. probably didn't think to ask to burrow any.
.. probably didn't expect to get any if he did think to ask.

[Elfdart]

The Brotherhood (including the Hound) rode up to Eastwatch, so at least they would have horses. It's not like a whole army needed mounts, just a dozen men.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I strongly suspect that the North routinely gets really short on horses during winter. They eat a huge amount of food, and I mean huge. A horse cannot realistically carry enough grain to feed itself for more than, oh... a month or so, tops? And that's a pack horse, not a horse that has to handle a rider.

Moreover, the grain that would feed a horse for a month could ALSO be used to feed a human being for a year.

Given that the topmost priority in the North is keeping the people alive, it is very likely that nearly all horses are killed for meat during the winter season, except for a small number of comparatively healthy mares and a handful of stallions for breeding stock. You might even stick with the last generation of colts born- to ensure they live long enough to be useful, healthy adults in their prime when winter ends.

You'd feed this small number of breeding-stock horses hay gathered during the spring-summer-fall months... but there wouldn't be many. And if you tried to keep horses alive into winter, even for a campaign season, they'd die. The grain to feed them wouldn't be there, the forage wouldn't be there. Once the snowdrifts got deep enough, the horses would gradually lose weight and strength and eventually die off entirely. You couldn't sustain them without having access to massive amounts of grain, and the ability to force everyone involved to agree to feed it to horses when it may be desperately needed for humans.

Add all this up, and while it may well be that the Night Watch or other groups in the North have horses, they have few horses, and only those horses that have already been selected for next spring's breeding stock. If those horses are ridden out into the winter, there may be NO horses left in all of the North when spring comes.

[Imperial Overlord]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

Benjin had a horse that seemed to be both living and in good health. It was certainly able to outrun the wights while carrying Jon Snow.

[wautd]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

Considering how thin the ice on the lake was, it shouldn't have been that cold

[NecronLord]

I actually assumed Benjen's horse was undead. Because it didn't object to having a giant wet blanket on it.

But then, the fact that Jon didn't die again from being that waterlogged is, eh.

[WATCH-MAN]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

Benjin had a horse that seemed to be both living and in good health. It was certainly able to outrun the wights while carrying Jon Snow.

We do not know, where Benjin and his horse were at night - when it was probably colder than when we saw Benjin and his horse during daylight.

Surely, to survive alone beyond the Wall, he had some kind of shelter where he and his horse stayed overnight and that protected him and his horse against the freezing cold.

John and his men didn't have such a shelter. They couldn't even make a fire - as this could have been spotted.

They had to fear, that, if they bring horses, they could freeze to death during the night like a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

And I assume that John and his men did not have a weather forecast for the area beyond the wall.

They only knew that winter came and the temperature dropped.

They had to consider the possibility that it could get even more colder - especially during night.

And they couldn't really know how long they will be beyond the wall.

Maybe it was not as cold when Benjin and his horse showed up.

Maybe all the time they were beyond the Wall, it wasn't as cold as John and his men expected.

But as John and his men couldn't know this, they had to prepare for the worst - and leave the horses behind.

[WATCH-MAN]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

Considering how thin the ice on the lake was, it shouldn't have been that cold

That's the difference between should and could.

Yes, maybe it wasn't that cold.

But could John and his men knew that?

Could they really know how cold it gets?

Or had they to prepare for the worst - assuming that in the winter - at night - it could get that cold?



Furthermore what do you mean with "that cold"?

When John and his men escaped over the ice and the army followed, the ice broke and many undead fell into the water.

But within a few hours, the lake froze again up to the point that the ice could now hold many undead who tried to overrun John and his men.

To me that seems as if it was really could or at least as if the temperature dropped significantly for the lake to freeze over again that fast.

[wautd]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

Considering how thin the ice on the lake was, it shouldn't have been that cold

That's the difference between should and could.

Yes, maybe it wasn't that cold.

But could John and his men knew that?

Could they really know how cold it gets?

Or had they to prepare for the worst - assuming that in the winter - at night - it could get that cold?



Furthermore what do you mean with "that cold"?

When John and his men escaped over the ice and the army followed, the ice broke and many undead fell into the water.

But within a few hours, the lake froze again up to the point that the ice could now hold many undead who tried to overrun John and his men.

To me that seems as if it was really could or at least as if the temperature dropped significantly for the lake to freeze over again that fast.

Oops, I meant couldn't instead of shouldn't.

I just found it hard to believe that the ice would be so thin when it's freezing 24/7 for weeks/months? on a row

[Ziggy Stardust]

Sloppy end to a sloppy, disappointing season.

Even the legitimately well executed moments in the finale were overshadowed by the inconsistencies, pacing issues, and bizarre plot holes. Just like the rest of this season has been so far, really.

Like, it was nice to see Littlefinger finally get his comeuppance, but only after a series of scenes that were almost incoherent with respect to the past couple episodes of plot development, with the character's personalities seeming to randomly flip from scene to scene for no reason whatsoever.

And so on and so forth for a lot of the rest of the episode. Some good moments, but overall the execution was just so half-assed, largely as a result of the unnecessarily condensed season, plus the fact that Benioff & Weiss can't seem to write a grocery list without G.R.R Martin around to help.

[Guardsman Bass]

I dislike what the Wight Reveal and Wight Dragon scenes represent in terms of storytelling and plotting, but I thought the scenes themselves were good (and Wight Dragon destroying the Wall looked amazing). I haven't watched the "Making Of" bit from the end of it, but supposedly the show-runners said that "Wight Dragon melting the Wall" is not how the Wall is going to come down in the books. Which is good, because in the show apparently the White Walkers only breached the Wall and got headed south because Jon and Tyrion screwed up with their "capture a wight" plan.

Speaking of which, Jon and Tyrion just can not do anything right. They just keep on failing upwards.

I also really liked the scene with Bran doing the reveal about Jon while Jon and Dany wordlessly fucked, while Tyrion looked on in the hallway with a look of resignation. Tyrion knows his time as Daenerys' right hand is going to disappear, in favor of Jon . . . or is it?!!! You just know the show is setting up MORE TENSION with the "Jon as legitimate Aegon Targaryen" bit. Also, I hate that his real name is Aegon.

For Wight Reveal, I already said why I dislike having that happen, versus folks in southern Westeros getting a horrifying surprise when the Wall comes down. But the scene itself was handled well, and the point when the Wight explodes out of the crate was good. The only exception is the Euron fake-out - what exactly was the plan there if they hadn't had anything convincing for him to riff? Did he just tell her he was lying afterwards?

Like, it was nice to see Littlefinger finally get his comeuppance, but only after a series of scenes that were almost incoherent with respect to the past couple episodes of plot development, with the character's personalities seeming to randomly flip from scene to scene for no reason whatsoever.

The set-up for that all felt totally half-assed, even if the reveal that they were working together was good. I'm just glad that storyline is over.

Other than that, the other stuff I disliked was pretty minor. I didn't like the Jon-Theon conversation, and Gregorstein seemed a little short.

[ArmorPierce]

Sloppy end to a sloppy, disappointing season.

Even the legitimately well executed moments in the finale were overshadowed by the inconsistencies, pacing issues, and bizarre plot holes. Just like the rest of this season has been so far, really.

Like, it was nice to see Littlefinger finally get his comeuppance, but only after a series of scenes that were almost incoherent with respect to the past couple episodes of plot development, with the character's personalities seeming to randomly flip from scene to scene for no reason whatsoever.

And so on and so forth for a lot of the rest of the episode. Some good moments, but overall the execution was just so half-assed, largely as a result of the unnecessarily condensed season, plus the fact that Benioff & Weiss can't seem to write a grocery list without G.R.R Martin around to help.

The purpose of the Sansa/Arya scenes was more to trick the audience, under the pretense of being done for Littlefinger's sake.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yay! He's gone! Spoiler

Littlefinger is gone!

Just hope he doesn't get raised as wight or something.

And I see Jon and Danaerys are continue Targaryen tradition...

Edits: Watching that smug slime Littlefinger impotent and unable to scheme his way out of the situation he created at last is far more satisfying than his actual death. Wonderful, and so, so deserved.

The death itself is quick and to the point. No drawn-out torture like with Ramsay, for example. Just a quick cut, and its done. As it should have been back in season one.

[Agent Fisher]

Wait, yeah, hold on, Jon's name is Aegon? The fuck? Um, Rheagar, Lyanna, he's already got a kid with that name! It should be Aemon Targaryen, or Jaeherys or something, but seriously, Aegon?

[ray245]

Wait, yeah, hold on, Jon's name is Aegon? The fuck? Um, Rheagar, Lyanna, he's already got a kid with that name! It should be Aemon Targaryen, or Jaeherys or something, but seriously, Aegon?

That kid doesn't exist according to Rheagar, since he annulled the marriage and turned his son into a bastard.

[Kane Starkiller]

I thought that Sansa and Arya screwing Littlefinger over was nice twist (although half-expected) however his "trial" really wasn't much of trial. No evidence was presented, it was just Starks' say-so. It didn't even seem anyone gathered there was even skeptical of the charges nor were any great lords of the north backing Littlefinger in the first place so what was the trial even for? For Robin Arryn's benefit?

So was Nights King plan to capture the dragon and use it against the wall all along or was it a stroke of luck for him? The show never really hints at any other way the white walkers could breach the wall although I suppose we can assume some kind of large scale siege that would have lasted a long time.

I'm not really a huge fan of how the writers are setting up convenient instant-victory states for themselves: dragons can be instantly killed by a hand thrown ice spear, undead dragons can be instantly killed by dragonglass/valyrian steel tipped spear (or maybe even an arrow because it's magic?), not only White Walkers but even Wights can be instantly killed by dragonglass, Wights instantly go dead when the white walker than spawned them is killed and of course the entire White Walker army dies if Night King is killed.

Not only is the last one on the list a cheap way out but it seems that White Walkers have been reduced from a possible sentient civilization/group into a mindless horde serving the Night King no different than the Wights. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the writers are happy with "Children of the Forest magic gone awry" as sufficient explanation for Night King's quest to destroy all life and no further thought will be given to his motivation or plans and all those symbols the White Walkers are drawing on the ground are just a red herring. That would probably be the most disappointing turn of events for me.

I actually find Cersei the most interesting character in this episode. She didn't straight up go the "hollywood villain" route and disbelieve everything she saw. She is more or less convinced the White Walkers are coming but still thinks she can come out on top: let the Daenerys' forces and the White Walkers bleed each other and then she'll pick up the pieces with her mercenary army. (They have elephants dude! Elephants! This can't fail!)

[Ziggy Stardust]

I also really liked the scene with Bran doing the reveal about Jon while Jon and Dany wordlessly fucked

See, the Jon "reveal" scene I thought was also an exercise in sloppy writing, once again due to time constraints. Like, they just needed a few more minutes to flesh that out and have it actually make sense.

For example, Sam suddenly realizing the importance of what Gilly had discovered a couple episodes prior ... during the scene where Gilly reads that out of the book, Sam is clearly NOT listening to her, because he doesn't even respond to what she says and continues to complain about how mean the maesters are being to him. If he HAD been listening to her, why didn't he ALREADY make a big deal out of it? Even if he didn't know at the time that Jon was Rhaegar's child, it's still a HUGE fucking deal to learn about this annulment, because it challenges the entire basis that the War of the Five Kings was fought over, and that is something Sam should be smart enough to realize. So, for the show to reveal that Sam HAD been listening to Gilly and understood that she was talking about Rhaegar annulling his marriage, but for him to not care about that information until he hears from Bran that Jon was Rhaegar's child is just plain idiotic. It's completely out of character for Sam to act that way. Now, I get what the show was TRYING to go for ... that it didn't click together in Sam's head until Bran said something, but they just rushed through the scene, so it made it seem like Sam just knew about the annulment and didn't give a shit.

Also, it's kind of funny to have Bran say "I see everything that's ever happened" to Sam, and then literally 5 seconds later is told something he doesn't know. I don't mind this so much in and of itself, because it's easy to make the argument that it's impossible for Bran to process everything that he can see without knowing where to focus, but once again the way it was executed was just a little too rushed, so it just made Bran look like a jackass instead.

And that's the basic problem with this season in general. I can see what they were going for, but they just rush through all of these critical plot points without giving them any time to develop naturally or to land emotionally. Like a couple of episodes ago when Jorah returns to Dany, and less than 1 minute later is leaving her again. It completely sapped away any possible emotional impact of the two characters reuniting because it all happens in about 30 seconds, while a bunch of other shit is going on simultaneously.

The purpose of the Sansa/Arya scenes was more to trick the audience, under the pretense of being done for Littlefinger's sake.

Yes, I realize that, and that's a large part of why it was bad writing. The only goal of the showrunners was to trick the audience, but to do that they had to have the characters act completely unnaturally, even in situations where they where was no reason for them to act that way IN UNIVERSE. Like, this is creative writing 101 level stuff, here. As I keep saying, I understand what they were TRYING to go for, but they completely undermined themselves with the bizarre decision to shorten the season, which forced them to rush through all these plot points without giving them the screen time to actually develop naturally. And that's the essence of bad storytelling: instead of moving the story forward in an organic and logical fashion, they just forced the story to veer towards the conclusions that they needed, and damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.

I actually find Cersei the most interesting character in this episode. She didn't straight up go the "hollywood villain" route and disbelieve everything she saw. She is more or less convinced the White Walkers are coming but still thinks she can come out on top: let the Daenerys' forces and the White Walkers bleed each other and then she'll pick up the pieces with her mercenary army. (They have elephants dude! Elephants! This can't fail!)

I laughed at the elephants line, too. That was super silly.

Lena Headey did a fantastic job this episode for sure, even though the fact that it should be obvious to every single person in Westeros that Cersei wasn't actually going to stick to her word and help Dany. Jaime's actions though puzzled me ... I understand why he would argue with Cersei about her plan in general, because he's a pragmatic character and her plan is obviously going to go awry and get her killed. It was just odd that he kept repeating "I GAVE MY WORD". For one thing, he DIDN'T give his word, at all. Cersei made the deal with Dany, not Jaime, so it's not really on him if Cersei changes her mind, and it's not like there was a scene in the episode of him grandly swearing a deal with Dany. And for another thing, the entire scope of his character arc the past couple of seasons is that he doesn't care about oaths and vows, all he cares about is his family.

And also the fact that they are setting up Euron coming back with the Golden Company to somehow surprise everyone, even though there's no way that a huge fleet can sail in the opposite direction it is supposed to, to pick up 20,000 soldiers, and not have anybody notice (seriously, Varys, what the fuck are you even doing if you can't even get your spies to tell you where a fleet of hundreds of ships captained by the least subtle person in the world is headed?). I mean, in general the show version of Euron is a terribly written deus ex machina, and it just irritates me in advance that he is once again going to magically teleport around and show up somewhere convenient for the plot.

[JLTucker]

You nitpickers still haven't realized that this OMG TELEPORTATION has been around since the first season. The King travels a month in the pilot. Dany is two months pregnant between two episodes. Stannis gets to Blackwster in one episode. Arya gets to Bravvos in less than an episode. Who gives a shit?

[SCRawl]

Wait, yeah, hold on, Jon's name is Aegon? The fuck? Um, Rheagar, Lyanna, he's already got a kid with that name! It should be Aemon Targaryen, or Jaeherys or something, but seriously, Aegon?

That kid doesn't exist according to Rheagar, since he annulled the marriage and turned his son into a bastard.

He annulled his marriage to Elia to marry Lyanna, so it was his children with her (who are deceased in the show at least) who are retroactively bastards. Rhaegar's marriage to Lyanna was presumably in force at the time of their deaths.

[SCRawl]

You nitpickers still haven't realized that this OMG TELEPORTATION has been around since the first season. The King travels a month in the pilot. Dany is two months pregnant between two episodes. Stannis gets to Blackwster in one episode. Arya gets to Bravvos in less than an episode. Who gives a shit?

At least the way they talk seems to indicate that time travels normally. Jon stated that the Dothraki could get from KL to Winterfell in a fortnight's hard riding, so twice the speed of King Robert and his entourage. (If we figure that they can sustain 100km/day on a well-maintained road, then that's 1400km for that trip, which doesn't seem far enough, but whatever.) It's stuff like the previous episode, during which our heroes should have frozen to death while waiting for Daenerys to receive the message and respond with her dragons without plot-required teleportation.

[JLTucker]

You nitpickers still haven't realized that this OMG TELEPORTATION has been around since the first season. The King travels a month in the pilot. Dany is two months pregnant between two episodes. Stannis gets to Blackwster in one episode. Arya gets to Bravvos in less than an episode. Who gives a shit?

At least the way they talk seems to indicate that time travels normally. Jon stated that the Dothraki could get from KL to Winterfell in a fortnight's hard riding, so twice the speed of King Robert and his entourage. (If we figure that they can sustain 100km/day on a well-maintained road, then that's 1400km for that trip, which doesn't seem far enough, but whatever.) It's stuff like the previous episode, during which our heroes should have frozen to death while waiting for Daenerys to receive the message and respond with her dragons without plot-required teleportation.

I can get behind the issue with Gendry and all that bullshit. But just going to one place to talk and then back in the single episode? Not an issue given the precedence. IMO, anyway.

[Ziggy Stardust]

You nitpickers still haven't realized that this OMG TELEPORTATION has been around since the first season. The King travels a month in the pilot. Dany is two months pregnant between two episodes. Stannis gets to Blackwster in one episode. Arya gets to Bravvos in less than an episode. Who gives a shit?

It isn't "nitpicking" to ask a plot to make coherent sense.

Condensing travel times in the interesting of storytelling is fine, in and of itself, as long as the story still makes coherent sense. For example, Arya's travel time to Braavos being shortened is fine, because the length of her journey doesn't actually matter, because the timing of her arrival in Braavos doesn't impact any of the other storylines or characters. Further, even if the time isn't shown on screen, ALL of the examples you mentioned have dialogue or other exposition that fits them within the broader spatial/temporal context of the show. Even if the timing wasn't always exact in the first couple of seasons, because it never needs to be EXACT, everything fit coherently together within the world the show was building. That is, even if things were massaged here and there, it always made sense WHERE and WHEN characters were in relation to each other in the world.

The problem with the most recent season is that they aren't doing this anymore. The connection between travel time and story doesn't make any coherent sense anymore, AND its DIRECTLY impacting the plot (unlike Arya's travel to Braavos). For example, Euron being in two different places on opposite sides of the continent IN THE SAME EPISODE, without any exposition or set-up that could possibly explain it. As opposed to the Arya example, in this came the timing actually IS directly relevant, because the entire plot point directly hinged on it. It has nothing to do with the travel time in and of itself, it has to do with the show respecting the rules of the world it has already established in the past several seasons, and having the WHERE and WHEN of how characters relate to each other make consistent sense.

This is, like, story-telling 101. Literally stuff you are taught in beginner-level creative writing courses.

The thing that's really insulting and irritating is that it isn't that hard to fix this. I'm not asking the show-runners to show extra episodes of travel time, but it's trivial to add extra dialogue or exposition that allows thing to fit together in a more coherent fashion. To pick on Euron again, we can just have a line of dialogue indicating that even though HE is in King's Landing, his fleet has already sailed around to Casterly Rock, or what have you. That way, we as viewers can make coherent sense out of what we are seeing, even if the timing isn't exact, because we see the show is actually addressing the physical fact that he can't be in two places at once.

[JLTucker]

I think the writers are not giving this exposition because they want things to be a surprise and/or have the viewers use their fucking brains. Where is Euron going to take Yara and Sand-bitch? Oh, King's Landing? Cool. Glad I guessed right instead of being told the fucking plan.

Creative writing courses are irrelevant to scripting. There's this idea of "show, don't tell" that many of you are forgetting about. In fact, one of GoT's biggest weaknesses, imo, is the amount of exposition to explain motives. For example, the Sexposition in LF's brothel in an earlier season.

[The Romulan Republic]

I dislike what the Wight Reveal and Wight Dragon scenes represent in terms of storytelling and plotting, but I thought the scenes themselves were good (and Wight Dragon destroying the Wall looked amazing). I haven't watched the "Making Of" bit from the end of it, but supposedly the show-runners said that "Wight Dragon melting the Wall" is not how the Wall is going to come down in the books. Which is good, because in the show apparently the White Walkers only breached the Wall and got headed south because Jon and Tyrion screwed up with their "capture a wight" plan.

Speaking of which, Jon and Tyrion just can not do anything right. They just keep on failing upwards.

I don't know. Jon took a calculated risk to accomplish a major objective when he set out to capture a wight. It mostly worked. There was no way that he could have foreseen that the White Walkers would be able to bring down a dragon (which was previously an instant-win weapon, and one that breaths one of the White Walkers' specific weakness to boot).

And I think that its good if generally bad ass and popular characters like Tyrion and Jon get outmaneuvered or just plain screw up from time to time. Otherwise, they start coming off as authors' pets/wish fulfillment.

Jaime outmaneuvering Tyrion earlier in the season was particularly delicious for me, since Jaime started out as the arrogant dumb brother who thought with his sword. Him having grown into someone who can out-think Tyrion on occassion(at least in his own field of expertise- the battlefield) is nice. Pity he's still following Cersie. I get the feeling that he'd probably be a pretty decent person, or at least a competent one, by Westeros standards if not for his affair with her.

And yeah, say what you will about the writing, visually, the White Walkers breaching the wall was amazing. And in television, where its a visual medium and they're also pressed for time, having the wall just blasted down by dragon fire is a pretty good way to handle it. It also upped the stakes and made the Walkers feel like more of a threat, since they've spent the whole series thus far pretty much languishing north of the Wall.

As important as I consider quality plots, I don't watch Game of Thrones for the writing, primarily. I watch it for the magnificent visual quality and production values, and the strong acting. Game of Thrones has always done well in those respects, but various scenes from the last couple seasons, particularly the Battle of the Bastards and the Walkers breaking the Wall, blew me away repeatedly. I honestly think that, aside from the obvious limitations of a small screen, they managed to feel epic, and yet vividly, powerfully real to me in a way that not even the Lord of the Rings films (the previous gold standard for epic fantasy in a visual medium) managed. I might not have even have believed that I could see something like that on television, even two years ago.

I could make all kinds of critiques of the writing, but from a visual (and acting) perspective, Game of Thrones is quite simply without peer, at least in the SF genre. I'm willing to forgive it a lot for that.

I also really liked the scene with Bran doing the reveal about Jon while Jon and Dany wordlessly fucked, while Tyrion looked on in the hallway with a look of resignation. Tyrion knows his time as Daenerys' right hand is going to disappear, in favor of Jon . . . or is it?!!! You just know the show is setting up MORE TENSION with the "Jon as legitimate Aegon Targaryen" bit. Also, I hate that his real name is Aegon.

My biggest problem with it (besides, you know, Dany and Jon's unwitting reversal to Targaryen traditions of incest) is that they made Jon a "legitimate" Targaryen rather than a bastard. I don't know if I'm off the mark here, but I feel like kind of the point of Jon's character is that he has to find, to earn his own place in the world, not having been born into one, because he's a bastard. Pulling out "oh no wait, he's really the rightful heir to the throne" is to me too fairly tale, or too soap opera, and arguably undercuts his previous storyline somewhat. But their are parts of the show I've not seen, so I'll concede that I may be missing something regarding the themes of Jon's arc here.

Not sure how I feel about Jon's mother going willingly with Raegar either, and them being in love, as opposed to him kidnapping her. On the one hand, it makes Raegar much more sympathetic and Jon's parentage less creepy. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about the supposed abductor/rapist turning out to be a really nice guy. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I don't think it usually works that way in the real world.

[FaxModem1]

I also really liked the scene with Bran doing the reveal about Jon while Jon and Dany wordlessly fucked, while Tyrion looked on in the hallway with a look of resignation. Tyrion knows his time as Daenerys' right hand is going to disappear, in favor of Jon . . . or is it?!!! You just know the show is setting up MORE TENSION with the "Jon as legitimate Aegon Targaryen" bit. Also, I hate that his real name is Aegon.

My biggest problem with it (besides, you know, Dany and Jon's unwitting reversal to Targaryen traditions of incest) is that they made Jon a "legitimate" Targaryen rather than a bastard. I don't know if I'm off the mark here, but I feel like kind of the point of Jon's character is that he has to find, to earn his own place in the world, not having been born into one, because he's a bastard. Pulling out "oh no wait, he's really the rightful heir to the throne" is to me too fairly tale, or too soap opera, and arguably undercuts his previous storyline somewhat. But their are parts of the show I've not seen, so I'll concede that I may be missing something regarding the themes of Jon's arc here.

Not sure how I feel about Jon's mother going willingly with Raegar either, and them being in love, as opposed to him kidnapping her. On the one hand, it makes Raegar much more sympathetic and Jon's parentage less creepy. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about the supposed abductor/rapist turning out to be a really nice guy. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I don't think it usually works that way in the real world.

Note that Ser Barristan told Dany a bit about her family, such as how her father was a bit of a madman, which made her realize that all of the 'propaganda
about her father was true, and she needed to be a better ruler than he was.

But also, that Ser Barristan told her about her older brother.



A man who likes to go out in public and sing, take his earnings, and donate them to orphanages does not sound like the characteristics of a rapist.