Game of Thrones Opening Episodes Venting/Discussion thread (SPOILERS aplenty!)

[Frankster]

Second game of thrones episode came out and been quite a few twists already (for better or worst). Let's rant about them! Or say whatever's on your mind really, considering we are early season this is gonna be more of a venting thread then anything else, but what's wrong with a little venting and nerd raging?

-Biggest thing that stuck with me in these 2 episodes is how friggin easy it was to kill important leaders in quick succession in just 2 episodes.

If I ever become a ruler or king of anything, the first thing I would do is replace the entirety of my castle guard with an army of undead. I've always liked skeletons and undead stuff, and UNLIKE the living or even robots who can be reprogrammed, undead are bound to your will so will never betray you and certainly won't just stand there and watch as you get shanked repeatedly..
Yeah between Prince Doran, Roose and even Greyjoy all getting murdered within their own turf, it seems like it's really hard to find good help in the world of ASOFAI
Even Prince Trystane was murdered on his own boat presumably crewed by a full complement of dornishmen sworn to protect their prince...Well actually seeing what happened to his dad this shouldn't be so surprising after all. Never hire a dornishman for a bodyguard it seems.

Funnily enough, Cersei seems to share my sentiments on undead servants, Ser Robert the Strong ftw. He doesn't judge, he doesn't talk, he just executes your will and he certainly wouldn't stand there and watch meekly as you're threatened/being stabbed.

-Dorne. Oh god where do I begin. Well as far as I'm concerned the dornish in the show are a nation of idiots. This tidbit pretty much sums it up:

"You killed Doran?
Yes
Because someone else killed his younger brother Oberyn?
Yes
And you were upset that he didn't immediately wage war against these people who are economically and military superior, several times over
Yes
And you are now wiping out the few surviving members of the family of the man you are trying to avenge
Yes

Tywin is probably laughing in the seven hells that one disposable grunt - The Mountain, has literally decimated an entire kingdom just by smashing a fucking head."

And I'm still not over how the dornish are apparently pissed at Doran for not being a sociopath and focused on silly things like keeping his people fed, happy and safe from the BS going on everywhere else. But yeah they hated his guts so hard that his own guards looked bored as he was getting killed. Oh and it means that all those times Oberyn was going on about how much better Dorne is, he was either talking complete nonsense or he didn't know his own country as much as he thought he did... "We don't kill little girls in Dorne". Ha.

At least the Bad Poosy brigade are keeping up their tradition of hilarity. "you're a greedy ***** you know that?" Ha such a delightful bunch of rascals these lot are, making action movie quips just after they casually murdered their relative and whatever actual loyal dornish guards might have tried to stop them (call me naive but I'd like to believe at least one dornish guard in the kingdom tried doing his job)

-Sticking with the deaths theme.. I admit I did not see what happened with the Boltons coming. I always just assumed Roose was a survivor and would probably survive till the end of the series, and that he would have seen any attempt at foul play from Ramsay coming a mile away, but nope. To me this was one of the most shocking deaths of GoT.

-So did Euron Greyjoy ninja his way into Castle pyke? Or did no one just bother informing Balon his brother has returned and is inside the castle? Maybe there's some magic shenanigans going on *shrugs*

-As someone who rather dislikes Daenarys and honestly fears the ending of GoT would be daenarys arriving in westeros just in time to repulse the white walkers with her dragons and then roflstomping the weakened remnants of the other houses, I perhaps enjoyed it too much when she was getting thrash talked by the Dothraki. Seeing her pull off her "im queen daenarys *insert lists of titles, hear me roar!" routine only for everyone to laugh in her face was the highlight of that episode for me, and credit where it's due, Emila Clarke does do some nice facial reactions to really sell the scene xD

-Regarding the finale of episode 2..Can't say I was too surprised with it. Wasn't surprised by the ending of episode 1 either, but it did get me with its boob bait and switch.

That's some mindless ranting from me, hope it provided a modicum of entertainment, now share yours!

 

[Ryotknife]

Is it bad that im silently rooting for the White Walkers, or that the Mad King probably had the right idea? It seems that Westeros is a nation of psychopathic assholes. Dorne was basically the last bastion of decency in the entire nation. In the North, we have a faction that flays people for fun, a faction who burned his own daughter for voodoo powers that he didnt get, and the Night's Watch commit treason on a seasonal basis. The Lannisters are pure grade A jerks for reasons too numerous to explain, with Tyrion being one of the only decent fellows in the whole show. King's Landing virtually all the denizens there are A-holes, from the nobility down to the peasants. The list goes on and on. There doesnt seem to be a single redeemable aspect of Westeros at all.

 

[Fappy]

They can't salvage Dorne at this rate. They fucked it up irreparably in the previous season. Why that chick insists on bringing fucking whips to assassinations is beyond me. Considering the close quarters she would have been destroyed had they dueled. Rapier > whip when your cramped in such a tight space, no contest.

I knew Roose was going down the moment it showed the dagger on Ramsey's back. I figured it would end this way considering all the build up involving his half brother. Fitting that he died the same way in which he betrayed Robb. Speaking of which, the battle of the Snows is upon us and I can't imagine things ending well for Ramsey. Much like his father, I think he's in for some poetic justice. His Mary Sue villain status will be revoked and his plot armor discarded the moment he goes up against Jon and Ghost.

I imagine he'll die in the same way many of his victims have: fed to dogs (in this case Ghost).

Regarding the ease of castle infiltration, the logic of the show is quite clear: if they're not a character we are supposed to root for they can get away with practically anything. Why those radicals could just waltz into the castle during a princess' funeral is anyone's guess. The Lannisters are skeevy as fuck. Are you telling me they couldn't realistically just have the High Sparrow assassinated? Also, where the fuck has everyone else been in this storyline since it started? It feels like Cersi, the King and Jaime are the only fucks in the entire city sometimes.

Hopefully they can salvage the silliness by delivering on Brann's story.

 

[Evonisia]

These last two episodes have convinced me that if the writers don't know how to move the plot forward they'll just kill somebody off to create drama. The gratuitousness of it only seems to increase as time goes on.

I'd rather Jon stay dead, but I never thought he would stay dead so I can't be disappointed in that.

Dorne continues to just be the worst thing in this show. I'm hoping Miss Angry ***** attempts a rebellion which is immediately decimated by Lannister forces and the Lannisters somehow invent nuclear bombs just to remove Dorne from Westeros.

Quite glad to see Bran again. That scene would have been perfect in Season 5 to establish that he still exists, but better late than never.

 

[Breakdown]

I don't get why Davos is so friendly with Melisandre. He used to hate her, and that was before she burnt Shereen at the stake and then abandoned Stannis to his fate.

 

[Fappy]

... and that was before she burnt Shereen at the stake and then abandoned Stannis to his fate.

I am fairly certain he is still unaware of both events. Not sure how he'll react if he finds out. I understood him asking for her help in a desperate time, but I don't really get why he was so desperate to bring Jon back to life in the first place. Seemed fairly forced, honestly. He barely knew the guy, and it feels like his logic for trying to resurrect him was because Jon is important to us as an audience.

 

[Breakdown]

... and that was before she burnt Shereen at the stake and then abandoned Stannis to his fate.

I am fairly certain he is still unaware of both events. Not sure how he'll react if he finds out. I understood him asking for her help in a desperate time, but I don't really get why he was so desperate to bring Jon back to life in the first place. Seemed fairly forced, honestly. He barely knew the guy, and it feels like his logic for trying to resurrect him was because Jon is important to us as an audience.

It's just got to the point that the characters are just doing whatever is necessary to tidy up the plot, and Melisandre has served her purpose in bringing Jon back to life. So I guess next week Davos will kill Melisandre and jump off the Wall to finally end the Baratheon plot line, while the Greyjoy King's Moot will end in a bloodbath with no survivors, and Hodor, reminded of his past, will kill Bran, the swamp girl, the old guy, the elf woman and finally himself.

 

[Silvanus]

I found Season Five to be a significant step down (not least because of the stuff the show writers have written themselves, such as the terrible Dorne plotline, the burning of Shireen, and other drastic divergences from the source material).

First two episodes of Season Six have been not too bad, apart from the continuing awful treatment of Dorne. They've made the whole damn Martell family so pointless, so petty; they've lost every drop of nuance from that plotline. Other parts were better. Glad they've finally killed Balon Greyjoy and introduced Euron.

 

[Josh123914]

You can just tell the latest character deaths are to try and quickly slash the actors' salary. Can't be easy paying all those people, and we all know if we waited around for Roose to get killed or Dorne to fight the Lannisters organically, the series would likely need about 9 seasons to conclude organically in that fashion.

So far I'm finding this season to be a big step up from Season 5, which felt like it had too many scenes without anything happening in it-- I'm all for character development and witty bants, but so much of it was just reaffirming character traits viewers who were paying attention already knew, or simply two characters wandering around trading lines. This isn't a dating simulator! You can have more than two characters in a scene D&D!

Anyway, yeah, good season so far, even if right now it is basically "Fan Theories Confirmations: The Season".

Dorne.

You're gonna enjoy this:
Everybody is so salty about Dorne. I saw the red flag the moment I found out there'd be no Arianne. I resigned myself to shutting off my higher brain functions when The Spear, The Daggers, and The Whip showed up. So far I've been having a good time, and as I said earlier this is simply condensing the end goal of Dorne trying to wreck the Lannisters. Doran is redundant now without Aegon around, though I am salty about Trystane's death. Who's running the country now? Obara?

Post your reactions when The Spear and The Whip sneaks into the Red Keep and murders Tommen. You just know they'll try.

 

[Frankster]

I don't get why Davos is so friendly with Melisandre. He used to hate her, and that was before she burnt Shereen at the stake and then abandoned Stannis to his fate.

I completely glossed over this but yeh, this was quite a Betrayal! moment. What happened to you Davos? Even if he doesn't know about Shireen and Stannis, shouldn't he at least be like "dude! why da fuq did you abandon my king bro? Whapt happened?"

He really is acting somewhat OOC, why does he want to res Snow so bad?

They can't salvage Dorne at this rate. They fucked it up irreparably in the previous season. Why that chick insists on bringing fucking whips to assassinations is beyond me. Considering the close quarters she would have been destroyed had they dueled. Rapier > whip when your cramped in such a tight space, no contest.

Maybe that's why Trystane chose to fight the whip chick when given the choice.
Shame his good sense didn't extend to trusting the assassins sent to kill you not to stab you in the back..of your head.
As an aside I can't help but feel Myrcelle and Trystane's deaths were..maybe not tragic, but I actually felt somewhat bad that in the end they really were just 2 young people more or less innocent of the BS going around and had they survived to grow up, might have become quite decent folks. No wonder they had to die.

Post your reactions when The Spear and The Whip sneaks into the Red Keep and murders Tommen. You just know they'll SUCCEED.

Corrected for accuracy. After what we've seen thus far I think the sandsnakes could easily solo their way into the Red Keep, quipping one liners after each guard they kill of course..Becaus unlike the dornish, at least lannister guards are competent and would actually do their job rather then stand and watch.

 

[jurnag12]

It's like they're trying to make the Dorne plotline as garbage as possible. Hey, let's grab the last few remaining hopes of it actually being good and kill them with the tripe bits instead!

 

[balladbird]

Gotta agree with the Dorne hate. The sand snakes and their "my dad died, let's avenge him by eliminating his entire bloodline" logic hurts my brain, and the prince and King were excised from the plot like a discarded wad of paper.

Other than that, I'm liking the season so far. The lannisters, the wall, even bran's story finally starts getting interesting here... If only because it's really his dad's story.

The only sub plots that bore me thus far are Mereen and all things related to it, but at least the Varys and Tyrion bromance is there to make it a bit more compelling

 

[Erttheking]

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD can someone just kill Ramsay already? Fuck it, that's what should of happened. Roose should've murdered the little bastard the second his trueborn son was delivered.

At least it's not as bad as with the Sand Snakes, who I think are in the running to actually dethrone Gregor Clegane in terms of number of Martells killed. "You're such a greedy *****." HAHAHAHAHA! You murdered your innocent cousin! One of the two Martells I actually liked in the show! SEE HOW HARD I'M LAUGHING AT HOW FUNNY THAT IS!? And yeah, I can get Dorne being mad at Doran for not avenging his brother, but I'd like to think most people would stop supporting the Sand Snakes the moment they murdered him. Kinslaying is kind of considered to be a horrendous crime in Westeros, Victarion Greyjoy even hesitates to do it even though his brother raped his wife. Oh SPEAKING OF WHICH!

Balon was supposed to have died before the Red Wedding and it being so late comes off as really stupid. The official story is that he fell off a stormy bridge at Pyke, Euron wasn't even on the island at the time. Oh don't get me wrong, there's suspicion that Balon's death can be traced back to him, after all he arrived back at Pyke suspiciously fast after he died, but he didn't do it himself. I'm pretty sure he hired a Faceless Man to do it. Also was that man who was talking to Asha supposed to be Aeron Greyjoy? I mean he's certainly got the look down, but would it have killed them for Asha at least call him uncle?

All in all I feel like they're desperately trying to play catch up with everything they cut out. They're trying to start the war with Yunkai and their allies, they're going to have the Tower of Joy in the next episode (REALLY looking forward to that) they need to have Dorne going to war with the Iron Throne, even though they forgot to have it make sense. And now we need to have the Kingsmoot even though we don't even know who Victarion and Aeron Greyjoy are yet and I don't think anyone ever mentioned Euron's name either. It's not bad, but I feel like it could've been so much better.

Also not surprised but pleased with Jon being back.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

Second game of thrones episode came out and been quite a few twists already (for better or worst). Let's rant about them! Or say whatever's on your mind really, considering we are early season this is gonna be more of a venting thread then anything else, but what's wrong with a little venting and nerd raging?

-Biggest thing that stuck with me in these 2 episodes is how friggin easy it was to kill important leaders in quick succession in just 2 episodes.

If I ever become a ruler or king of anything, the first thing I would do is replace the entirety of my castle guard with an army of undead. I've always liked skeletons and undead stuff, and UNLIKE the living or even robots who can be reprogrammed, undead are bound to your will so will never betray you and certainly won't just stand there and watch as you get shanked repeatedly..
Yeah between Prince Doran, Roose and even Greyjoy all getting murdered within their own turf, it seems like it's really hard to find good help in the world of ASOFAI
Even Prince Trystane was murdered on his own boat presumably crewed by a full complement of dornishmen sworn to protect their prince...Well actually seeing what happened to his dad this shouldn't be so surprising after all. Never hire a dornishman for a bodyguard it seems.

Funnily enough, Cersei seems to share my sentiments on undead servants, Ser Robert the Strong ftw. He doesn't judge, he doesn't talk, he just executes your will and he certainly wouldn't stand there and watch meekly as you're threatened/being stabbed.

-Dorne. Oh god where do I begin. Well as far as I'm concerned the dornish in the show are a nation of idiots. This tidbit pretty much sums it up:

"You killed Doran?
Yes
Because someone else killed his younger brother Oberyn?
Yes
And you were upset that he didn't immediately wage war against these people who are economically and military superior, several times over
Yes
And you are now wiping out the few surviving members of the family of the man you are trying to avenge
Yes

Tywin is probably laughing in the seven hells that one disposable grunt - The Mountain, has literally decimated an entire kingdom just by smashing a fucking head."

And I'm still not over how the dornish are apparently pissed at Doran for not being a sociopath and focused on silly things like keeping his people fed, happy and safe from the BS going on everywhere else. But yeah they hated his guts so hard that his own guards looked bored as he was getting killed. Oh and it means that all those times Oberyn was going on about how much better Dorne is, he was either talking complete nonsense or he didn't know his own country as much as he thought he did... "We don't kill little girls in Dorne". Ha.

At least the Bad Poosy brigade are keeping up their tradition of hilarity. "you're a greedy ***** you know that?" Ha such a delightful bunch of rascals these lot are, making action movie quips just after they casually murdered their relative and whatever actual loyal dornish guards might have tried to stop them (call me naive but I'd like to believe at least one dornish guard in the kingdom tried doing his job)

-Sticking with the deaths theme.. I admit I did not see what happened with the Boltons coming. I always just assumed Roose was a survivor and would probably survive till the end of the series, and that he would have seen any attempt at foul play from Ramsay coming a mile away, but nope. To me this was one of the most shocking deaths of GoT.

-So did Euron Greyjoy ninja his way into Castle pyke? Or did no one just bother informing Balon his brother has returned and is inside the castle? Maybe there's some magic shenanigans going on *shrugs*
euron has travelled to places like old valyria and quarth, even taking a warlock hostage. the iroborn have two gods, the drowned god who is the "good" diety despite approving of plunder, rape and slavery (srsly fuck the ironborn) and the storm god, a diety viewed as a sort of antichrist. euron has unknown connections to the storm god and while he didn't kill balon directly in the books it is very likely that he manipulated a storm to throw balon off the rope bridge. had to say precisely what he did in the show but since he is so well traveled he probably has knowledge of the many assasin guilds in esssos and might have picked up on some of their methods. or he could just have landed on a different island under false sails, rowed to pyke and snuck into the castle

-As someone who rather dislikes Daenarys and honestly fears the ending of GoT would be daenarys arriving in westeros just in time to repulse the white walkers with her dragons and then roflstomping the weakened remnants of the other houses, I perhaps enjoyed it too much when she was getting thrash talked by the Dothraki. Seeing her pull off her "im queen daenarys *insert lists of titles, hear me roar!" routine only for everyone to laugh in her face was the highlight of that episode for me, and credit where it's due, Emila Clarke does do some nice facial reactions to really sell the scene xD

-Regarding the finale of episode 2..Can't say I was too surprised with it. Wasn't surprised by the ending of episode 1 either, but it did get me with its boob bait and switch.

That's some mindless ranting from me, hope it provided a modicum of entertainment, now share yours!

 

[axlryder]

Spoiler

Second game of thrones episode came out and been quite a few twists already (for better or worst). Let's rant about them! Or say whatever's on your mind really, considering we are early season this is gonna be more of a venting thread then anything else, but what's wrong with a little venting and nerd raging?

-Biggest thing that stuck with me in these 2 episodes is how friggin easy it was to kill important leaders in quick succession in just 2 episodes.

If I ever become a ruler or king of anything, the first thing I would do is replace the entirety of my castle guard with an army of undead. I've always liked skeletons and undead stuff, and UNLIKE the living or even robots who can be reprogrammed, undead are bound to your will so will never betray you and certainly won't just stand there and watch as you get shanked repeatedly..
Yeah between Prince Doran, Roose and even Greyjoy all getting murdered within their own turf, it seems like it's really hard to find good help in the world of ASOFAI
Even Prince Trystane was murdered on his own boat presumably crewed by a full complement of dornishmen sworn to protect their prince...Well actually seeing what happened to his dad this shouldn't be so surprising after all. Never hire a dornishman for a bodyguard it seems.

Funnily enough, Cersei seems to share my sentiments on undead servants, Ser Robert the Strong ftw. He doesn't judge, he doesn't talk, he just executes your will and he certainly wouldn't stand there and watch meekly as you're threatened/being stabbed.

-Dorne. Oh god where do I begin. Well as far as I'm concerned the dornish in the show are a nation of idiots. This tidbit pretty much sums it up:

"You killed Doran?
Yes
Because someone else killed his younger brother Oberyn?
Yes
And you were upset that he didn't immediately wage war against these people who are economically and military superior, several times over
Yes
And you are now wiping out the few surviving members of the family of the man you are trying to avenge
Yes

Tywin is probably laughing in the seven hells that one disposable grunt - The Mountain, has literally decimated an entire kingdom just by smashing a fucking head."

And I'm still not over how the dornish are apparently pissed at Doran for not being a sociopath and focused on silly things like keeping his people fed, happy and safe from the BS going on everywhere else. But yeah they hated his guts so hard that his own guards looked bored as he was getting killed. Oh and it means that all those times Oberyn was going on about how much better Dorne is, he was either talking complete nonsense or he didn't know his own country as much as he thought he did... "We don't kill little girls in Dorne". Ha.

At least the Bad Poosy brigade are keeping up their tradition of hilarity. "you're a greedy ***** you know that?" Ha such a delightful bunch of rascals these lot are, making action movie quips just after they casually murdered their relative and whatever actual loyal dornish guards might have tried to stop them (call me naive but I'd like to believe at least one dornish guard in the kingdom tried doing his job)

-Sticking with the deaths theme.. I admit I did not see what happened with the Boltons coming. I always just assumed Roose was a survivor and would probably survive till the end of the series, and that he would have seen any attempt at foul play from Ramsay coming a mile away, but nope. To me this was one of the most shocking deaths of GoT.

-So did Euron Greyjoy ninja his way into Castle pyke? Or did no one just bother informing Balon his brother has returned and is inside the castle? Maybe there's some magic shenanigans going on *shrugs*
euron has travelled to places like old valyria and quarth, even taking a warlock hostage. the iroborn have two gods, the drowned god who is the "good" diety despite approving of plunder, rape and slavery (srsly fuck the ironborn) and the storm god, a diety viewed as a sort of antichrist. euron has unknown connections to the storm god and while he didn't kill balon directly in the books it is very likely that he manipulated a storm to throw balon off the rope bridge. had to say precisely what he did in the show but since he is so well traveled he probably has knowledge of the many assasin guilds in esssos and might have picked up on some of their methods. or he could just have landed on a different island under false sails, rowed to pyke and snuck into the castle

-As someone who rather dislikes Daenarys and honestly fears the ending of GoT would be daenarys arriving in westeros just in time to repulse the white walkers with her dragons and then roflstomping the weakened remnants of the other houses, I perhaps enjoyed it too much when she was getting thrash talked by the Dothraki. Seeing her pull off her "im queen daenarys *insert lists of titles, hear me roar!" routine only for everyone to laugh in her face was the highlight of that episode for me, and credit where it's due, Emila Clarke does do some nice facial reactions to really sell the scene xD

-Regarding the finale of episode 2..Can't say I was too surprised with it. Wasn't surprised by the ending of episode 1 either, but it did get me with its boob bait and switch.

That's some mindless ranting from me, hope it provided a modicum of entertainment, now share yours!

soooo...you agree?

 

[RedDeadFred]

Since there was already a discussion thread (kind of, the original article was focused more on Jon), I'll just quote myself from there:

Roose has always seemed way too cunning to not be able to sniff out dissension and kill it quickly. He knows what Ramsay is, and yet he somehow allowed his psychotic bastard to gather support out from under him and then kill him as soon as another child was born. I really hope the books don't do it this way, because the show's already putting too much focus on Ramsay. The strength of the books was always that there weren't too many straight up evil characters. They're all varying degrees of grey. Ramsay and the show's portrayal of Joffrey really don't meet this standard.

The Greyjoy stuff seems to be a lot better on screen than it was in the books. This was by far the most plodding material book 4 gave us and was almost always a chore for me to read through. I do hope we get Victarion though as he was what made the plotline in the book tolerable.

The resurrection scene was pretty predictable. You know it's the last scene of the episode so something big is going to happen and you know they have to do the fake out for the sake of drama, so you know that as soon as everyone has left, he's going to wake up. It was a good scene, but it lost a lot of its potential weight by being both predictable (just about everyone buys the Jon Targaryen theory now) and cliche. I hope the books don't make it simply as him getting brought back by Melissandre. The books touched on the fact that a warg could have their mind escape death by fleeing into another being. I'm hoping that in the books, Jon fled into Ghost and returned to his body after Melissandre made it habitable again. They could still do this in the show, but I don't think it would work very well since it hasn't touched on the Stark children all being wargs (with Bran being the most powerful) nearly as much as the books.

The King's Landing stuff was all very good. The conversation between Cersei and her son was quite touching. I really hope the prohesy doesn't come true because Tommen really comes across as a good guy. He's introspective enough to recognize his flaws, but he also has the wisdom to show restraint. Sure he lacks confidence, but I'd rather him sit on the throne than Danny at this point.

Tyrion and the dragons was a fun scene. Glad they didn't pull a Quentin.

Sansa and Theon's scene was also quite touching. I wonder if Theon gets back in time for the moot. This plotline intrigues me quite a bit because the Greyjoys have a lot of catching up to do in regards to where the other plotlines are. I'm wondering if they'll cut aspects of it entirely or if they're simply going to ignore the amount of time it takes to

Spoiler: Dance of Dragons Spoilers

essentially sale to the other side of the world to get to the battle of Slaver's Bay

Arya's scenes have been pretty dull. Though, to be fair, I think the show has actually done a better job of making her story interesting than the books did. Her killing Trant last season was a lot more interesting than killing a deserting Night's Watchman. The scenes of her in the books were far too spread out and I ultimately lost a lot of interest in her story. The show is doing a bit better of a job, but I can't help but feel like we're just treading water until she's allowed to do other stuff.

Bran's scene was pretty interesting too. Seems that we'll be getting what everyone has theorized in that he'll see plenty of flashbacks of Ned's life, potentially culminating in the Tower of Joy where we find out the truth behind Jon's parentage.

Overall, I like this episode quite a bit more than the first one, but that's pretty much par for the course with this show. I do think this season is shaping up to be better than the last one.

As a side not: I think the Faegon theories are all but confirmed at this point. If he was going to have a truly meaningful impact as another Targaryen in the books, they would have introduced him by now on the show.

I left out mentioning Dorne, but ya.... they suck. Though, that plot wasn't all that interesting in the books to me either, so I'm fairly apathetic towards the whole thing. A lot of people say they ruined Dorne, but IMO, the only good thing to come out of Dorne in the books was Oberyn, and the show nailed him. The plot in with Dorne in the show makes very little sense, but at least they sent two well liked characters for that storyline instead of some random King's Guard who I couldn't care about in the slightest.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

I just want to see littlefinger again. I miss him. Dorne's absolutely stupid, the Night's Watch stuff was predictable, I'm pissed that Danaerys is being forced down another irrelevant tangent for pointless drama...

I reeeeeaaaaaly miss littlefinger. Not one scene of him yet. The only decent entertainment I've gotten out of these two episodes is from Tyrion. However, it looks like they've gotten past the requisite plot tidying and can move on to actual progress. Aside from Danaerys.

Did I mention that I miss littlefinger?

 

[Silvanus]

Post your reactions when The Spear and The Whip sneaks into the Red Keep and murders Tommen. You just know they'll try.

...Oh my god. That's exactly what will happen, isn't it?! It's the worst thing they could do, and they'll do it.

I reeeeeaaaaaly miss littlefinger. Not one scene of him yet.

It's quite difficult to imagine what context he'll pop up in now. With Sansa down in the North, they can't do any of the Vale/ Harry the Heir/ Lords Declarant plot from the books, which is what Littlefinger is chiefly involved in at this point. So, they'll either have to invent something entirely to get him involved, or just leave him out and then wrap him up later.

Now that Sansa's fled Winterfell, it really does make Littlefinger's proposal to marry her to Ramsay all the more absurd. Nothing was likely to come from it, and nothing came from it.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Jon Snow's resurrection has made me absurdly happy, and now that Brienne has FINALLY found Sansa, I can perhaps dare to hope that at least some things will start to go right for the good guys. Yes yes, I know this is Game of Thrones, but you have to sprinkle *some* positive results into your grimdark or else it just becomes a depressing mess of pointlessly awful things happening for their own sake.

At least, in theory....

Dorne continues to just be the worst thing in this show. I'm hoping Miss Angry ***** attempts a rebellion which is immediately decimated by Lannister forces and the Lannisters somehow invent nuclear bombs just to remove Dorne from Westeros.

Best case scenario: Cersei sends Zombie-Mountain to annihilate the Dornish for their crimes/monstrous stupidity, only to get lost in the desert forever on his way back, leaving the Faith to crush the Lannisters in King's Landing. They then peacefully implode somehow, allowing the Tyrells to take the Iron Throne, who establish a revolutionary new style of rule called "Not being complete and utter monsters", decree Jon Snow to be Jon Stark and King in the North, he unites the North through the total extermination of the Freys and Boltons and then wipes out the White Walkers with the Wildings and some Dragons that Daenarys lent him, she having decided to be stop being a bloody idiot at every turn. Also all the surviving Starks are returned home to lives of prosperity and wonderment.

Yes I am still sore over the Red Wedding, hell I'm still sore over what happened to Ned!