NowonSA posted:

Also, put me on team "The High Sparrow knew Cersei was evil nobility, but used her to get into power and bring justice to the land." I have to imagine he'd heard the rumors about her incest, since Lancel is a member of the Faith Militant before it's even properly revived and the High Sparrow is likely who he would have confessed his sins to. Even absent a Lancel confession, he's among the common folk and he knows that the Lannisters have not been kind to them.

I can totally see him letting Margaery go with a confession and a pledge to provide food to the hungry or do some other form of charity, he doesn't know for sure that Tommen won't just flip out and send in the troops so he'll want to release one of the two women he loves, and he ain't letting go of Cersei. Loras might have to confess and take some lashes, or pledge to become a knight in service of the Faith Militant, but Sparrow knows that anything truly harsh like, say, forcing him to be castrated is going to seriously piss off the Tyrells, and for all his bluster I think he knows when to make a compromise to bring about proper change. Plus from his conversation with Cersei before he arrests her he seems to mostly care about getting a confession and then arranging a sensible punishment, he seems pretty chill considering we've seen Joffrey order that Dontos drink himself to death just because he looked at him the wrong way.

I'd actually really like a scene with Tommen and the High Sparrow where they just talk things over, Sparrow learns that Tommen is fasting and truly upset, and that could lead to Margaery's release, a lighter sentence for Loras and Cersei not being forced to rot in the dungeons for eternity. It'd also show that Tommen's kind heartedness isn't entirely a weakness, and I think they'll want us to be as sympathetic toward Tommen and his rule as possible before Daenerys shows up and lets her dragon eat him.

Dr. Faustus posted:

Truth, & love the Aliens reference. When she sent her daughters off on the boat that was enough foreshadowing for me. I knew she was done for.

Speaking of foreshadowing (as has been mentioned previously), it does seem very telegraphed that the conversation between Sam and Farmer Orphan Boy is going to backfire horribly. The child actor just put too much, "Well... if you say so... in that case... I guess I'll have to [something really impulsive and tragic]" on his face. It wasn't subtle.

Red posted:

Do we know how Greyscale is passed? It seems like you have to go whole Stoneman before you're infectious.

ParliamentOfDogs posted:

Eh I'm done with Ramsay, dude is a full on cartoon character and has passed the point of love to hate to just being tedious. Also I really wouldn't buy him being some sort of super soldier on top of everything else. Dude sat up north picking wings off flies, he was probably never in a real battle. But he will probably kill Brienne in a one on one fight then spin kick Davos into a campfire then dress up as him and convince Stannis to burn Shireen then trick Melisandre to aim her voodoo at his dad's pregnant wife.

Kaiju Cage Match posted:

Also RIP Rattleshit, Lord of Boners.

Elephanthead posted:

Brienne is going to get Rickton killed isn't she?

Is there anything bad about the free folk beside the cannibalism? They seem like my kinda party people. They are best buds with frickin giants and funny as long as you don't do any dick sucking jokes.

tooterfish posted:

Well it's not like they're don't play that trick with other characters.

Just look at Jaime. The guy is a murdering loving scumbag, but they're trying to make him more sympathetic all the time. And the Hound, come to think of it.

Baldbeard posted:

The whole immediate area south of the wall is mostly uninhabited because of the wildling terror -- and that's the only reason Jon can offer them that land.

Red posted:

The High Sparrow holds a lot of cards - including a potentially legitimate accusation that the Lannisters have no claim to the throne. He can very much turn King's Landing upside down.

Ghetto Prince posted:

Try to make out one figure in a crowd of thousands with >50 meter visibility in the middle of a blizzard, try to make an arrow shot in a blizzard, get stabbed to death by fifty zombies, rise and join the horde.

Zwabu posted:

If you've got a better plan we'd all like to hear it!

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

I mean, it's pretty clear that they have control of a lot of King's Landing. Not only do they have political prisoners, but if someone finally gets pissed and send in the guard, it's gonna spark a serious revolt no matter how well it goes militarily.

Alan Smithee posted:

you know to this day I don't know what that soldier's point was. I know the point of the line was to make Stannis both badass and a pedant but really it's a war, how many people did he think were going to die?

Spartan421 posted:

Yeah, I think Qyburn's meeting with Cersei was just to foreshadow the Mountain wrecking the poo poo out of the zealots.

ultramiraculous posted:

"The Work continues..."

Willie Tomg posted:

"They [these soldiers, all of whom would go on to Blackwater for one side or the other] are the children of summer and winter is coming." -Cat

Robb mostly plays grabass with the Lannister armies after getting hella wasted with his vassals one night and declaring a completely untenable independent kingdom which in practice looked more like a confederacy, Baelon Greyjoy is a dog chasing cars who's utterly unprepared for the ramifications of backstabbing his allies, Renly seriously didn't expect anyone to do something unpredictable until his last breath, Joffrey/Cersei well... y'know. Stannis is the only individual who takes the war remotely seriously which is why anyone would want him in a position of power despite pretty much every other characteristic of Stannis' person.

Wafflecopper posted:

Kind of disappointed we didn't get a shot of the giant awkwardly climbing onto a ship and almost capsizing it while the crew are all

Schizotek posted:

He runs boat insurance, but will gently caress over exceptionally poor people with no social capital. So same deal as modern insurance agencies really. And all men can afford the Faceless Men at great cost.

Xealot posted:

I didn't read it as some maternal instinct crippling her with indecision. I saw it as absolute existential panic, that the enemy was so brutal and inhuman that the gravity of it was paralyzing.

Schizotek posted:

Well they did. Tywins ancestor hosed off to Essos with it and never came back. They're common enough that lots of great houses, even relatively minor ones, have one. But the ones that do have them will basically never, ever sell them.

JT Jag posted:

Since Valyrian steel swords are in such short supply, I imagine that the only way the White Walker horde can be stopped is with large supplies of dragonglass or large amounts of dragonfire. Which means that regardless of your position on their morality, it's basically a zero-sum game: either Stannis or Daenarys need to win the throne.

William Bear posted:

I read it more as freezing in terror at seeing zombie children (that she may have known) than any inability to fight kids.

Bobo the Red posted:

Most of those things didn't even have faces, and she'd been fighting shitloads of zombies. It was weird to take the time to establish her as a mother and then have her be unable to fight off a bunch of tiny zombies after she fought off like 10 regular sized ones.

But it's only a small blemish in a loving kickass episode

Elephanthead posted:

We just learned the secret ingredient to Valyrian steel is dragon glass. Also wilding women with lines can only be killed by children or zombie children.

Android Blues posted:

That means it's not a play he's likely to make unless he's planning on overthrowing the monarchy entirely and instituting a theocracy on official terms.

zoux posted:

The HBO synopsis for last night was "Arya makes progress in her training. Sansa confronts an old friend. Cersei struggles. Jon travels."

Petah posted:

All of you guys are missing a very important point. Those aren't any zombie children. Those are HER zombie children. That's the reason why she sobbing like crazy and no will to fight. It was definitely one of the creepiest visuals in the whole series so far.

zoux posted:

Were they?

Willie Tomg posted:

the entire point of the scene with the high sparrow and Olenna was to communicate the stupidity of Olenna ordering the common people to let their bretheren in faith starve to death for no reason nobler than her grandkid facing An Consequence of violating some pretty explicit religious custom the lowborn have to deal with every single day. That whole scene is a dusty creaky little old dude quietly saying to one of the most powerful and intelligent people in the world "if you want to make this a fight, lets do it, because i'm going to win because you need soldiers and money and supplies and a lot of things where all I need is a lot of people who all believe the same things and that's it."

My Q-Face posted:

This is where either the High Sparrow, or the writers are going wrong. The common people hate anyone who is different. That includes other common people. The common people of one of the seven kingdoms would just as soon spit at the common people of another kingdom for inconveniencing them, for not having to endure the same hardships, or a thousand other petty reasons. Seriously, look at all the poor people who are dead-set against welfare and food stamps just because they wrongly believe that the money is coming out of their pockets and going to lazy people from a different background. LMAO if you think the dirt farmers of the Reach care anything about those city-folk from Kings Landing, even if they do share the same Gods.

ultramiraculous posted:

So I just remembered that the Lord of Bones was dead when the White Walkers took over. He's going to make the -est wight.

Kaiju Cage Match posted:

Bobo the Red posted:

Brienne is not Theon; Brienne would destroy Ramsay in a one on one

Petah posted:

Which makes me wonder, is it possible to re-animate a partial dead skeleton? If so then he's gonna be the most schizophrenic wight in Westeros.

Petah posted:

Which makes me wonder, is it possible to re-animate a partial dead skeleton? If so then he's gonna be the most schizophrenic wight in Westeros.

My Q-Face posted:

This is where either the High Sparrow, or the writers are going wrong. The common people hate anyone who is different. That includes other common people. The common people of one of the seven kingdoms would just as soon spit at the common people of another kingdom for inconveniencing them, for not having to endure the same hardships, or a thousand other petty reasons. Seriously, look at all the poor people who are dead-set against welfare and food stamps just because they wrongly believe that the money is coming out of their pockets. LMAO if you think the dirt farmers of the Reach care anything about those city-folk from Kings Landing, even if they do share the same Gods.

ultramiraculous posted:

So I just remembered that the Lord of Bones was dead when the White Walkers took over. He's going to make the -est wight.

tooterfish posted:

All this talk of Tormund's "beatdown", and now this. Did everyone but me blink at the shot of him after Tormund had finished?

There was nothing left of his head. It wasn't a "beatdown", Tormund literally stoved the guy's head in. He's not getting back up from that, even as a wight!

tooterfish posted:

All this talk of Tormund's "beatdown", and now this. Did everyone but me blink at the shot of him after Tormund had finished?

There was nothing left of his head. It wasn't a "beatdown", Tormund literally stoved the guy's head in. He's not getting back up from that, even as a wight!

Petah posted:

All of you guys are missing a very important point. Those aren't any zombie children. Those are HER zombie children. That's the reason why she's sobbing like crazy and has no will to fight. It was definitely one of the creepiest visuals in the whole series so far.

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

He's the only potential king in Westeros who isn't a scummy, backstabbing liar (excluding Tommen but Tommen can't handle this poo poo). He worships a crazy fire cult and takes advice from a literal witch but he might still be the best man for the job. That this is true is what makes Westeros so goddamn awful.

Dany should stay in Essos, gently caress this place.

Willie Tomg posted:

Well that's the thing about fundamentalism, it replaces all those old sectarian divisions and says the faith is the one, all-encompassing object. I'm not calling the Faith Militant the Westerosi Taliban glibly; the actual IRL Taliban came to power largely on the basis of the rest of Afghanistan being a patchwork of fiefdoms with tribal warlords tussling over the sectarian bullshit you list, and then saying in effect "listen, we're all of one faith. we might be insanely strict assholes, but we're going to be consistent assholes to everyone instead of just our political enemies" and after 20 years of grinding warfare that position swayed the minds of a lot of people who wanted to walk around Kabul without dodging sniper fire and Katyusha rockets even if it meant that women had to wear beekeeper suits and have male escorts to take that walk.

quote:

I think you're correct that Highgarden is the San Francisco of Westeros and represents a little bit of resistance to the fervor elsewhere in the non-North Westeros, but that's largely a function of avoiding the worst of the wars so far (now the Riverlands... that's some prime Faith militant territory, and a breadbasket in its own right.) If Olenna wants to start some poo poo with an army of militarized ascetics who are currently in the process of deposing a monarchy, that situation can get really fluid really quickly. The Sparrow likes fluid, because he doesn't need much and never has and fluid has worked out really really really well for him so far, so he's willing to Go There in the name of enhancing the fundamentalist state. The Queen of Thorns likes money and influence and stability and safety, which require a few more preconditions than the absolutist monastic lifestyle.

Emo Philips posted:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!"
He said, "Nobody loves me."
I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"
He said, "A Christian."
I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"
He said, "Protestant."
I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"
He said, "Baptist."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Baptist."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

Aphrodite posted:

Looks like the white walkers earned more recruits than Jon did.

My Q-Face posted:

And yet Baelish is willing to risk his dagger in a bet with Tyrion on a jousting tournament. And Tywin not being able to buy one might be more a case of nobody is willing to sell Valyrian Steel to him. I think it's not that it's impossible to find, and or that nobody remembers how to make it, since Jon's sword is actually relatively new, and the blacksmith was able to work Ned's sword. Just that it's very expensive and since its use against the white walkers has been forgotten, probably viewed by most people as more as an extravagance than anything else.

Also, an in for Gendry's return, since he's probably able to work Valyrian Steel.