Game of Thrones

[MartinG]

By contrast, I've been known to run out of the office screaming with my fingers in my ears if the conversation threatens to reveal stuff I haven't seen yet. 

[Chris L]

Tonight's episode was possibly the most stunning to date and the climactic scene is something we've wanted to see since almost the first season. If you haven't seen it yet, avoid spoilers at all costs. (There's allegedly a leaked script on the Internet from the HBO hack, but I've managed to avoid it all week.)

They're moving very quickly. We're only halfway through this season, though with the short seasons they're currently doing that means there are only nine episodes remaining.

[valmont]

After the episode ended I just sat in the dark and muttered "oh my god" for thirty minutes.

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Damn Qyburn and his damn Scorpion!  Bronn has been one of my favorite characters, but I was actually wishing he'd get killed by that Dothraki that was chasing him.  This battle scene was thrilling, but filled me with anxiety, not least for the safety of Drogon and his rider.  By the end I was exhausted.

I hope Jamie was able to get free of his armor before he drowned.  That will make him Tyrion's prisoner, that'll be nice and awkward.  Jamie now knows that Tyrion is innocent of Joffrey's murder, but unfortunately, Cersei still does not.

The scene of Arya training with Brienne was satisfying, but why did Sansa abruptly walk away like that?

The business with the dagger has been interesting.  So now Arya has Valyrian steel, and I'm betting that before the season is over she will have need of it.

[Chris L]

@valmont,

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I think we can be safely assured that Jaime will survive the fall into the river. He's too interesting a character to kill and has been underutilized up until now. A few long scenes with Tyrion could rectify that and demonstrate how Jaime has matured since the early episodes, especially since losing his arm. Personally, I'd hate to see him go.

The scenes with Daenaerys and Drogon were thrilling and I was happy that the show handled them so well. I hadn't expected her to do anything like this until the end of the season, so they must have something much larger planned for the penultimate episode, which is usually where the season peaks on this show. Outdoing the Lannister/Dothraki battle is going to be tough, though.

And I wonder if Bran, or what remains of him, is going to get around to telling anyone what he's learned about Jon Snow's ancestry. And whether he'll do it before or after Daenaerys and Jon give in to the obvious sexual chemistry between them.

[valmont]

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And I wonder if Bran, or what remains of him, is going to get around to telling anyone what he's learned about Jon Snow's ancestry. And whether he'll do it before or after Daenaerys and Jon give in to the obvious sexual chemistry between them.

I've been wondering this as well.  Bran now seems uninterested in human affairs (no pun intended), for he had seen Arya at the crossroads, knew she was coming to Winterfell, but said nothing about it to Sansa.  Bran has seen quite a lot in the past, I wonder what, if anything, he is able to see in the future, and whether such knowledge will help the cause or merely confuse their efforts.

Someone online suggested that Meera might re-enter the plot by bringing Howland Reed to Winterfell in order to spill the beans about Jon's parentage.

I did not bother to watch the preview of the next episode last night; it showed Jon making the acquaintance of Drogon as Daenerys returns to Dragonstone, so I might at least have spared myself some anxiety on that score.

I think Jon is about to head to Eastwatch-By-The-Sea with a party that will probably include Davos, and I expect they will meet up with Berrick Dondarian, Thoros, and Sandor Clegane.

Very excited about Sam's new task to make copies of that big pile of books because undoubtedly some arcane but vital bit of knowledge will thereby be discovered.

[Chris L]

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I've been wondering this as well.  Bran now seems uninterested in human affairs (no pun intended), for he had seen Arya at the crossroads, knew she was coming to Winterfell, but said nothing about it to Sansa.  Bran has seen quite a lot in the past, I wonder what, if anything, he is able to see in the future, and whether such knowledge will help the cause or merely confuse their efforts.

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Bran seems to be able to see the past, though I have to wonder if he's not just seeing the memories acquired by earlier generations of Three-Eyed Ravens. He also can see what's going on anywhere in Westeros at present. But has there been any indication that he can see into the future? I tend to doubt that he can, except by making deductions based on the vast array of knowledge available to him.
We tend to look the other way during the previews, so that we can watch the After the Episode segment without having anything spoiled, but I'm glad to hear that Drogon survives. I had suspected that he would, given how peppy he became the moment Daenaerys pulled the scorpion bolt out of him.

[Bobster]

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To me, Sansa walked out like that because Arya is now supreme at combat--heck, she practically could have killed Brienne--so she's a little threatened that she may end up just being a "wife" and not a leader.

[Leighton]

My favourite moment was Bronn laughing at 'Dickon'

Breathtaking stuff

[valmont]

This was a great episode of rising action without any major conflicts, though I certainly did not expect

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That Sam would leave the Citadel. How delightful it was that a crucial bit of knowledge was offhandedly disclosed by Gilly, of all people, and Sam completely ignored it. I had expected that the action would converge on Eastwatch, but I didn't expect the Gendry would make one of the party.

I fear that Daenerys will come to regret putting the Tarleys to death, much as Robb's gravest mistake was putting to death the Karstarks who murdered the Lannister boys.

It seems to me that Daenerys has fallen in love with Jon.  But we must bear in mind, that the Targaryen wed brother and sister for centuries, so I expect to her the revelation that he is her nephew would not be particularly troubling.

Everything is happening so fast. These five episodes could have been a full season.

[Chris L]

I'm surprised that it looks as though

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Sam is going to be the one to discover Jon Snow's lineage, which is probably for the best given that Bran doesn't seem to give a shit about anything. I think his revelation last season was mostly for the viewers, just to get it out of the way because so many people had already figured it out. Dramatically, it would have been better saved for this season, but fan theorists had already beat it to death.

Otherwise, the episode mainly seemed to be setting up the next one, so I think we can expect

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a major confrontation with the white walkers (and, from what little I glimpsed of the preview, the Night King) in the next episode. The penultimate episode is always their big one, so this had better be good, to top Daenaerys and Drogon taking down the loot train.

BTW, neither Amy nor I can remember where Davos knows Gendry from. Where was that? In Season Two? Three? They seem to be well acquainted.

And I guess there won't be any more Dickon jokes.

[valmont]

 It happened late in season 3. 

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After the defeat at Blackwater Bay, Melisandre was anxious to turn Stannis's fortunes.  Gendry had escaped harrenhal with Arya and hot pie, when they were captured by the Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood then released them, but Gendry was tired of running and decided to stay with them and be their blacksmith.   But he was sold by Thoros and Beric to Melisandre who brought him to Dragonstone. Davos had seen her give birth to the Smoke demon thing whatever it was that murdered Renly. He surmised that Melisandre planned to sacrifice Gendry to the Lord of Light. We thought so too, because she insisted that she needed Royal Blood to do whatever it was she was going to do. At first, she just took some of Gendry's blood with leeches which were burned in a brazier as part of the spell in which Robb Stark, Joffrey Baratheon, and Balin Greyjoy were cursed to die.  But Gendry was not released.  Melisandre still had plans for him, and he was locked in a cell. Davos sneaked down and released him and put him in a row boat.

[AmyG]

It occurred to me last night that...

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...the white walkers are the equivalent of climate change — An impending weather-related doom that is soon to descend upon the world. Jon Snow is Al Gore. He knows the truth but is having trouble convincing anybody else. Daenerys Targaryen is opening up to the idea slowly. In this analogy, she represents any world leader that entered into the Paris Agreement. Cercei is Donald Trump, in complete denial.

[valmont]

WOW.  Tonight's episode was amazing.  A solid half-hour of dialogue followed by a solid half-hour of action.  You'd think that structure wouldn't work, that it would feel lopsided, but it does work brilliantly.  And how nice it was to have complete conversations again!  Character development even at this late hour.  So welcome.

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Oh Viserion
Is there another writer who, just when everything has got as bad as you can imagine, can manage to make them even worse?  This is the worst thing that could have happened.

Why do I have the suspicion that Cersei is going to think she can commandeer the Army of the Dead for her own purposes?

Bran has been able to control a bird, a wolf, and a man.  Can he control a wight, I wonder?

Something in those books Sam stole from the citadel has the secret that will win the war(s).  But I wonder where he is going.

[Chris L]

Well, I didn't see that coming!

I've been wondering since Episode Four whether they could come up with something to top the Loot Train Battle and it looks like they did indeed have a trick up their sleeves.

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Looking back at the episode, I realize they showed us the zombie polar bear to establish that animals can become White Walkers as well as humans, and yet it still surprised me when the Night King dragged whichever of Dany's dragons that was out of the frozen lake. The fact that the NK has a weapon that kills dragons seems like a bit of a deus ex machina -- Had there been any hint previously that they might be able to do this? -- but it certainly sets us up for a spectacular aerial war in Season Eight.

I turned to Amy afterwards and asked her how a zombie dragon could breathe fire without burning itself up and she replied, quite reasonably, that it's going to breathe ice. That's quite a new twist on the "ice and fire" motif of the series.

[Chris L]

WOW.  Tonight's episode was amazing.  A solid half-hour of dialogue followed by a solid half-hour of action.  You'd think that structure wouldn't work, that it would feel lopsided, but it does work brilliantly.  And how nice it was to have complete conversations again!  Character development even at this late hour.  So welcome.

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Oh Viserion
Is there another writer who, just when everything has got as bad as you can imagine, can manage to make them even worse?  This is the worst thing that could have happened.

Why do I have the suspicion that Cersei is going to think she can commandeer the Army of the Dead for her own purposes?

Bran has been able to control a bird, a wolf, and a man.  Can he control a wight, I wonder?

Something in those books Sam stole from the citadel has the secret that will win the war(s).  But I wonder where he is going.

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I wonder if Sam will come up with something to explain that spear the Ice King used. Interesting idea about Bran being able to warg into a white walker. I wonder if he can warg into a dragon? Or a dragon white walker?

So, do you suppose this is from one of the hints that GRRM gave the DBs about what he had planned?